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CATHOLIC    MYSTICISM 


KEG  AN  PAUL,  TRENCH,  TRUBNER  6-   CO.   LTD, 


CATHOLIC  YEAR  BOOK  FOR   1900.     A  Handbook  of 

General  Information  for  Catholics.    Crown  8vo.  paper  cover,  is.  net. 


BY    THE    ABBE    BOLO. 

THE    TRAGEDY    OF    CALVARY.      Translated  from  the 
French  of  the  Abbd  Henri  Bolo.     Crown  8vo.  -zs.  6d.  net. 

THE   MORROW   OF  LIFE.     Translated  from  the  French 
of  the  Abb6  Hhnri  Bolo.     Crown  8vo.  zj.  6d.  net. 


MOURNING    FOR    THE    DEAD.       Pious    Exercises  for 

November  and  Times  of  Bereavement.  Compiled  from  the  Liturgy 
of  the  Church  and  sources  approved  by  Lawful  Authority.  A  Vade 
Mecum  to  the  Deathbed  and  to  Funeral  Functions,  Pott  Svo. 
2s.  6d.  net. 


OXFORD   CONFERENCES :   CONFERENCES   ON 

GRACE.  Summer  Term,  1899.  By  Fr.  Raphael  M.  Moss, 
O.P.,  Lector  in  Sacred  Theology.  Crown  Svo.  paper  cover,  is.  6d. 
net.  

London  :  Paternoster  House,  Charing  Cross  Road,  W.C. 


AN  ESSAY 


IN  AID  OF  THE  BETTER  APPRECIATION  OF 


CATHOLIC    MYSTICISM 


ILLUSTRATED   FROM   THE  WRITINGS  OF 


BLESSED    ANGELA    OF    FOLIGNO 


BY 

ALGAR    THOROLD 


LONDON 

KEGAN   PAUL,  TRENCH,  TRUBNER  &  CO.  LTD. 

PATERNOSTER  HOUSE,  CHARING  CROSS  ROAD 

1900 


{The  rights  of  translation  and  of  reproduction  are  reserved) 


PATRI,    AMICO 

HUGONI   EDMUNDO   FORD,  O.S.B. 

STI.    GREGORII    MAGNI    APUD    DOWNSIDE    PRIORI 

GRATfe 

FILIUS,  AMICUS 

A.  L.  T. 


173105 


OF  THE 

;     5'NIVERSITY 

OF 
£4L'F0RN\b* 


CATHOLIC    MYSTICISM 


Errata. 

Page  i8,  line  5,y&r  and  the  mass  of  men  who  are  not  artists  with  their  painted  joys, 
&c.,  r^o^  and  the  mass  of  men  who  are  not  artists,  with  their 
painted  joys,  &c. 

„        33     „    20    ,,    place  read  praise. 

„  51  „  18  „  no  momentous  consequences,  &c.,  read  its  momentous  conse- 
quences, &c. 

,,      174     II   29    1 1    check  rfa</ checks. 


once  led  the  greatest  of  our  race  to  heights  of  now 
scarcely  imaginable  intensity  of  living,  hobnobs,  in 
popular  esteem,  with  the  patter  of  the  sorcerer  and 
the  tireuse  de  cartes. 

But  the  right  of  words,  unlike  that  of  kings,  is 
truly  divine,  and  if  the  scheme  of  the  world  be  guided 
by  reason,  some  day,  at  length,  must  surely  see  these 
legitimate  sovereigns  restored  to  their  thrones. 

B 


OF  THE     ^ 

IVERSITY 

OF 


CATHOLIC    MYSTICISM 


In  these  days,  when  the  methods  of  democracy  not 
only  claim  the  outer  court  of  a  man's  social  environ- 
ment, but  also  threaten  the  shrine  of  his  thought, 
many  words  of  ancient  descent,  accustomed  in  the 
past  to  rule,  without  question,  the  peoples  of  the  soul, 
are  fallen,  veritable  rois  en  exily  on  evil  times.  Faith, 
for  the  most  part,  bereft  of  her  palaces,  must  dwell  in 
the  hiding-holes  of  superstition,  her  deadliest  foe  : 
reason  seems  on  the  way  to  becoming  indistinguish- 
able from  the  trained  use  of  developed  senses. 
Mysticism,  the  sublime  child  of  faith  and  reason,  that 
once  led  the  greatest  of  our  race  to  heights  of  now 
scarcely  imaginable  intensity  of  living,  hobnobs,  in 
popular  esteem,  with  the  patter  of  the  sorcerer  and 
the  tireuse  de  cartes. 

But  the  right  of  words,  unlike  that  of  kings,  is 
truly  divine,  and  if  the  scheme  of  the  world  be  guided 
by  reason,  some  day,  at  length,  must  surely  see  these 
legitimate  sovereigns  restored  to  their  thrones. 

B 


2  CATHOLIC  MYSTICISM 

I  have  elsewhere  tried  to  uphold  the  '  pretensions ' 
of  mysticism  in  general  to  be  the  sole  and  supreme 
mood  to  which  a  man  must  needs  betake  himself  as 
soon  as  he  has  outgrown  the  superstitions  of  ration- 
alism and  sensualism — the  mob  rule  of  the  senses, 
and   the   fallacies  of  'education.'     Here    I  shall  en- 
deavour to   deal   with   the  constituents   of  Catholic 
mysticism.     In  the  course  of  this  attempt  it  will  be 
necessary^  incidentally,  and   by  way  of  illustration, 
to  introduce  some  elements  in  a  hypothetical  process 
of  *  conversion,'  and  also  to  suggest  the  sort  of  way 
in  which  the  modern  Catholic  mystic  may  be  disposed 
to  meet,  for  the  sake  of  his  own  peace  of  mind,  some 
current  objections  to  Catholic  faith  and  practice.     I 
trust  I  shall  not  be  understood  to  be,  in  this,  trenching 
on  the  ground  of  apologetics  proper.     That  is  an  out- 
work of  theology  with  which  I  am  wholly  incompetent 
to  deal.     My  aim  here  is  much  more  modest.     I  wish 
to  be  understood  as  introducing  these  elements  solely 
by  way  of  illustration,  for  their  psychological  rather 
than  for  their  theological  value.     It  cannot,  I  think, 
be  doubted  that,  whether  it  be  right  or  not  to  think 
thus  (a  question  I  am  not  here  concerned  with),  many 
persons  are  coming  to  think  in  some  such  manner  as 
that  of  my  hypothetical   mystic.     And,  under  these 
circumstances,  it  cannot  be  without  psychological,  and 


THE  MYSTIC  AND  THE  CHURCH  3 

even  sociological  value  to  attempt  to  determine  the 
scope  and  goal  of  such  a  tendency. 

The  Catholic  mystic,  apart  from  his  individual 
vocation  to  real  apprehension  of  Spirit,  finds  himself 
in  relation  to  the  Church,  i.e.  to  humanity  organised 
from  the  religious  point  of  view,  and  it  is,  of  course,  in 
this  relation  and  what  comes  of  it,  that  his  peculiar 
note  consists.  The  Catholic  or  Universal  Church  is 
an  organic  unity  of  which  the  baptised  individual  is  a 
member.  It  has  its  theoretical  and  practical  con- 
ditions of  membership ;  its  dogmata  of  faith  and 
morals.  Like  every  organism  its  constitution  is 
strictly  hierarchical,  its  machinery  of  authority  culmi- 
nating in  the  law  of  Peter,  irrevocable,  infallible  ; 
infallibility  being  the  sanction  proper  to  a  revealed 
system,  such  as  the  Church  claims  to  be.  The  task 
of  the  Catholic  mystic  is  so  to  adjust  these  social 
claims  to  his  individual  vocation,  that  not  only 
neither  be  defrauded,  but  that  each  subserve  the  other. 
Now  the  Church  may  be  regarded  from  two  points  of 
view,  that  of  faith,  which  is  proper  to  the  Catholic 
only,  and  that  of  observation,  which  is  common  to  all 
men.  Viewed  in  the  latter  way,  in  its  purely  pheno- 
menal aspect,  i.e.  as  an  element  of  possible  experi- 
ence to  every  observer,  Catholicism  is  seen  to  be 
nothing  else  than  the  world-society  of  souls.     Other 

B  2 


4  CATHOLIC  MYSTICISM 

societies  of -souls  there  are  in  plenty  amongst  men,  but 
in  them  the  religious  organisation  has  not  reached  its 
goal  of  universalism,  it  is  still  tribal  or  national,  as  the 
very  names  of  these  societies  indicate.  Their  organ- 
isation may  also  be  said  to  be  opinionative,  in  contra- 
distinction to  that  of  the  Church,  whose  organisation 
rests  upon  faith,  in  that  whereas  Catholics  believe 
certain  doctrines  because  they  are  members  of  the 
Catholic  Church,  the  members  of  a  sect  or  of  a  de- 
nomination belong  to  this  or  that  body  because  they 
believe  particular  doctrines.  In  this  case,  the  Church 
does  not  make  the  doctrine,  but  the  doctrine  the 
Church.  The  motive  of  their  belief  to  the  indivi- 
duals composing  the  society  is  anterior  to  the 
existence  of  the  society,  let  alone  its  authoritative 
teaching,  for  the  society,  in  this  case,  comes  into 
existence,  not  to  teach  anybody  anything,  but  purely 
as  the  social  expression  of  a  certain  pre-determined 
unanimity  of  opinion  among  the  individuals  who 
compose  it.  Whatever  claims  on  the  human  con- 
science such  a  society  may  afterwards  come  to  make, 
it  will  be  for  ever  logically  impossible  to  exercise  the 
Catholic  quality  of  faith  in  regard  to  its  teaching. 

It  is  often  supposed  by  those  who  approach  the 
subject  of  Catholicism  from  the  point  of  view,  and  with 
the  historical  methods,  of  the  enemies  of  the  Catholic 


THE  SPIRITUAL  AND  THE  CIVIL  SOCIETY         5 

Idea,  that  the  mystic  will  necessarily  find  himself  in 
a  state  of  more  or  less  constant  friction  with  the 
ecclesiastical  authority.  Of  course  this  is  not  so. 
The  friction  is  not  constant  or  in  the  least  inevitable. 
But  under  certain  special  circumstances  of  misunder- 
standing, on  one  side  or  the  other,  such  friction  may, 
and  occasionally  does,  arise.  Now  the  difficulties 
which  may  thus  occur  between  the  mystic  and  the 
religious  society  are  more  or  less  analogous  to  those 
which  often  occur  between  the  individual  genius  and 
the  civil  society  ;  for  the  mystic  is  the  religious  genius. 
The  analogy  is  not  perfect,  for  civil  authority  cannot, 
as  such,  claim  an  ethical  sanction,  and  the  proper 
solution  of  the  religious  difficulty  is  wholly  sui generis 
and  without  parallel  in  the  civil  order.  Still,  the 
object  towards  which  the  social  instinct  works, 
whether  on  the  religious  or  on  the  civil  plane,  is  one 
and  the  same,  i.e.  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest 
number,  and  it  is  the  real  or  apparent  conflict  between 
this  aim  and  the  personal  good,  perceived,  and  there- 
fore desired,  only,  it  may  be,  by  the  solitary  thinker, 
that  constitutes  the  crisis  in  either  case.  Let  us  see, 
then,  what  are  the  elements  of  such  a  difficulty  when 
it  occurs  between  an  individual  thinker  and  the  civil 
society  in  which  he  lives. 

To  go  back  to  truisms  :  a  man  is  a  social  being  in 


6  CATHOLIC  MYSTICISM 

virtue  of  that  which  he  has  in  common  with  every 
other  man  ;  he  is  a  genius  if  his  individuality  be  so 
far  developed  in  virtue  of  that  which  he  alone 
possesses.  The  rope  which  binds  him  to  his  fellows 
is  plaited  out  of  the  strands  of  those  needs  which  all 
men  find  it  necessary,  or  at  least  desirable,  to  satisfy. 
As  life  goes  on,  and  the  nervous  system  grows  more 
refined  and  intricate,  these  needs  become  more  com- 
plex. It  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  that  the 
social  organisation  of  a  Central  African  tribe  is  as 
truly  such  as  the  municipal  arrangements  of  London  ; 
it  is  simpler,  because  the  circumstances  with  which  it 
has  to  deal,  the  needs  it  has  to  meet,  are  more 
elementary.  But  man  also  exists  as  an  individual, 
wholly  unlike  any  of  the  other  individuals  together 
with  whom  he  forms  the  social  organism,  of  which 
interior  dissimilarity  the  fact  that  no  two  individuals 
are  exactly  alike  in  feature  is  an  effective  symbol. 
Whether  this  dissimilarity  consists  in  the  mixing,  so 
to  speak,  of  the  qualities  which  go  to  make  the 
human  being,  or  whether  each  soul,  to  use  a  term  we 
can  neither  fully  understand  nor  do  without,  be,  as 
Aquinas  teaches  of  the  angels,  a  species  in  itself, 
this  differentiation  of  individuals  has  to  be  admitted 
as  an  ultimate  fact  in  experience. 

Here,  then,  we  have  a  double  aspect  of  man,  the 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  SOCIETY  7 

individual  and  the  social,  and  the  point  to  note 
about  these  aspects  is,  that  they  both  represent  con- 
ditions necessary  to  his  existence.  For  it  should  be 
observed  that,  without  some  social  environment,  the 
brain  of  the  human  infant,  even  if,  in  other  respects 
its  material  life  survived,  would  certainly  not  progress 
to  the  human  level,  so  that,  to  this  extent  at  least, 
the  development  of  the  individual  is  the  work  of 
society.  Deprived  of  human  intercourse  from  the 
first,  a  man  would  be  no  more  than  a  tricky  sort  of 
mammal.  It  is  his  social  environment  that  develops 
in  him  the  latent  germs  of  ideation  ;  but  when  these 
germs  have  so  far  developed  as  to  enable  him  to  reach 
the  notion  of  the  Self,  of  his  own  personality,  limited 
and  for  ever  solitary,  the  further  development  of  his 
individual  genius  no  longer  depends  on  the  external 
stimulant  of  society,  but  becomes,  in  proportion  to  his 
personal  achievement,  more  and  more  self-actuated. 
The  craving  for  unification  in  ideas  leads  many  to 
absorb  the  one  aspect  of  life  in  the  other,  and  so  we 
have  individualists  who  push  their  theories  to  social 
anarchy,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  communists,  in  whose 
ideal  state,  as  such,  the  individual  would  be  starved 
out. 

This  craving  for  unification  is  in  itself,  of  course, 
a  good  thing,  and  directly  or  indirectly  the  source  of 


8  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

all  philosophy  and  religion  ;  but  its  proper  satisfaction 
does  not  lie  in  the  absorption  of  the  one  aspect  by 
the  other,  but  in  the  discovery  of  a  synthesis  in  which 
both  aspects  can  be  included  and  made  one.  Now, 
putting  aside  the  hypothesis  of  a  supernatural  end  to 
human  life,  in  which  both  the  above  aspects  of  man 
should  eventually  be  made  one  by  God, — a  hypothesis 
which  certainly  cannot  be  entertained  on  rational 
grounds  alone — it  is  evident  that  such  a  synthesis  has 
yet  to  be  formulated.  Sensible  folk  consequently 
accept  in  practice  a  compromise.  The  thinker,  if  he 
be  a  wise  man  of  the  world  as  well  as  a  theorist,  wil 
accept  certain  conditions  of  life  to  him  inherently 
absurd,  in  order  to  secure  himself  liberty  on  another 
plane.  After  all,  in  order  to  think  it  is  first  necessary 
for  him  to  live,  so  even  if  from  a  speculative  point  of 
view,  adultery  should  be  to  him  a  venial  pastime,  and 
property  a  baseless  superstition,  he  will  not  act  on 
either  of  these  convictions  in  a  propertied  and  mono- 
gamous society.  Doubtless  he  will  have  his  reward. 
Now  if  the  Church  be  regarded  simply  on  its 
phenomenal  side,  this  reasoning  will  hold  equally 
good  for  the  Catholic  mystic.  It  is  not,  therefore, 
surprising  that  those  who  expressly  exclude  any 
other  view  are  driven  to  the  conclusion  that  a  genuine 
mystic,  remaining  in  Catholic  communion,  only  does 


THE  CHURCH  A  REVELATION  OR  NOTHING   9 

SO  by  the  exercise  of  some  such  economy  as  I  have 
supposed  the  radical  thinker  to  practise.  But  the 
moment  that  the  Church  is  no  longer  regarded  in 
this  purely  subjective  way — no  longer  regarded,  that 
is  to  say,  as  a  merely  social  exteriorisation  of  a 
particular  group  of  man's  religious  opinions,  which, 
as  we  saw  just  now,  is  the  formative  principle  of  the 
sect  as  such — the  whole  perspective  of  the  case  alters. 
The  Church  is  given  objectively  in  her  claim  to 
credence  as  a  Revelation,  and  it  is  as  such,  or  not  at 
all,  that  she  has  to  be  accepted.  And  we  may  here 
observe,  in  passing,  that  the  absence  of  corroboration 
of  the  independent  existence  of  that  aspect  of  reality 
(by  hypothesis  otherwise  unknowable)  which  she 
claims  to  reveal  to  us,  need  not  cause  much  distress 
to  those  who,  in  the  face  of  the  mysteries  of  life,  are 
wise  enough  to  submit  to  her.  The  Catholic  does 
but  postulate  in  the  religious  order  a  correspondence 
between  experience  and  reality  which  has  no  less  to 
be  postulated  in  any  order  of  knowledge  possible  to 
man.  *  From  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  our 
perceptive  and  imaginative  activity,  we  are  synthetis- 
ing  the  material  of  experience  into  unities,  the 
independent  reality  of  which  is  beyond  proof,  nay, 
beyond  the  possibility  of  evidence.  And  yet  the  life 
of  intelligence,   like   the  joy  of  contemplation,  lies 


lO  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

entirely  in  the  formation  and  inter-relation  of  these 
unities.  This  activity  yields  us  all  the  objects  with 
which  we  can  deal,  and  endows  them  with  the 
finer  and  more  intimate  part  of  their  beauty.  The 
most  perfect  of  these  forms,  judged  by  its  affinity  to 
our  powers  and  its  stability  in  the  presence  of  our 
experience,  is  the  one  with  which  we  should  be 
content ;  no  other  kind  of  veracity  could  add  to  its 
value.'  ^ 

It  may  also  be  noted  that  the  validity  of  the 
religious  order  can  only  be  evaded  on  condition  of 
absolutely  ruling  out,  once  and  for  all,  as  a  disease 
of  the  imagination,  the  religious  tendency  of  a  man's 
nature,  with  all  the  corollaries  in  our  mutual 
relations  and  our  estimate  of  the  value  of  life  which 
can  be  shown  to  depend  on  it.  At  this  cost,  but  at 
no  less,  can  we  be  logically  freed  from  the  claims  of 
the  '  soul ' — and  of  the  Church. 

Let  us  now  endeavour  to  see  more  exactly  what 
is  involved  in  this  claim  of  the  Church  to  embody  a 
positive  revelation  ;  having  done  this  we  shall  be  in 
a  better  position  to  see  the  true  solution  of  the 
possible  difficulties  between  the  Catholic  mystic  and 
ecclesiastical  authority. 

First  of  all,  the  claim  to  inerrancy  of  dogmatic 

^   The  Sense  of  Beauty,  by  G.  Santayana,  p.  190. 


THE  INFALLIBILITY  OF  THE  CHURCH  II 

statement,  or  to  what  is  called  the  infallibility  of  the 
Church,  is  necessarily  involved.  This  does  not  mean 
that  all  the  propositions  of  faith  and  morals  main- 
tained in  the  Catholic  Chair  all  over  the  world  are 
final  and  true,  but  it  does  mean  that  there  exists  in 
the  constitution  of  the  Church  a  means  of  determin- 
ing their  truth  ;  that  a  certain  number  of  them  have 
been  so  determined,  and  that,  in  process  of  time,  as 
necessity  may  demand,  others  will  be  so  determined. 
It  does  not  mean  that  these  determinations,  or 
definitions  as  they  are  called,  may  lawfully  be  made 
in  disregard  of  ordinary  human  knowledge,  in  those 
few  cases  where  such  human  knowledge  really  bears 
on  the  subject ;  a  decision  of  the  Church  may 
supplement  human  knowledge :  indeed,  at  the  cost  of 
pleonasm  it  must  do  so  ;  no  theologian  could  admit 
that  it  could  finally  contradict  it.  Nor  is  it  necessarily 
involved  in  the  principle  of  ecclesiastical  infallibility 
that  the  Truth  should  be  stated  in  the  fullest  or  best 
possible  way  ;  what  is  involved  is  that  the  definition, 
as  far  as  it  goes,  is  without  error,  and  that  this  im- 
munity from  error  is  not  the  result  of  the  superior  intel- 
ligence of  the  defining  authority,  but  of  the  divine 
guarantee.  When  the  Vatican  Council  defined  the  seat 
of  ecclesiastical  infallibility,  the  Roman  Pontiff  was 
said,   in   the  words   of  the   decree,   *  to  enjoy  that 


12  CATHOLIC  MYSTICISM 

infallibility  with  which  the  Divine  Redeemer  wished 
His  Church  to  be  endowed ' — neither  more  nor  less. 
Moreover,  the  practical  corollary  follows  that  these 
definitions  are,  as  such,  irreformable,  and  that  hostile, 
as  distinguished  from  explicative,  criticism  of  them  is 
forbidden.  That  which  does  not  claim  to  be  the 
result  of  human  intelligence  cannot  logically  be  held 
amenable  to  its  sanctions  :  you  do  not  accept  or 
reject  an  ecclesiastical  definition  on  intrinsic  grounds, 
but  solely  on  the  ground  of  your  acceptance  or 
rejection  of  the  promulgating  authority. 

Now  what  is  the  relation  of  the  mystic  to  these 
definitions  or  dogmata  of  the  Church  ?  It  is  import- 
ant to  get  this  out  clearly,  for  it  is  often  supposed 
4hat  the  mystic's  personal  communications  with  God 
supersede  in  his  own  case  the  social  revelation  of 
which  dogma  is  the  ratified  expression.  Such  a  view 
involves  a  total  misunderstanding  of  what  the  Church 
means  by  dogma. 

In  the  Catholic  view  dogma  is  not  opinion 
freely  selected  by  the  individual  for  the  sake  of 
his  particular  needs  at  the  moment,  but  is  a  re- 
vealed statement  of  spiritual  truth,  by  hypothesis 
otherwise  unknowable  to  the  human  mind.  Not  all 
the  intuitions  of  all  the  mystics  in  the  world  put 
together  could  assert  the  Catholic   doctrine  of  the 


MYSTICAL  PHILOSOPHY  AND  THE  CHURCH      1 3 

Incarnation  or  of  the  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass,  though 
the  teaching  of  the  pre-Catholic  mystics  is  redeemed 
from  much  that  seems  puerile,  and  is  at  length  seen 
in  its  true  perspective  when  viewed  in  the  light  of 
those  sublime  mysteries  as  the  fulfilment  to  which 
they  unconsciously  aspired.  In  this  way  Catholic 
doctrine  sheds  a  retrospective  light  over  mystical 
speculation.  There  are  passages  of  Plato  and  Plo- 
tinus  into  which  only  a  Catholic  can  read  their 
fullest  implications.  Yet  it  is  not  meant  by  this 
that  the  Mass  is  the  logical  terminus  of  the  Platonic 
idea,  but  rather  that  the  latter  was  one  of  the  divinely 
appointed  means  of  educating  man  into  a  state  of 
soul  in  which  he  could  appreciate  the  former  when, 
in  sacri  plenitudine  temporis,  it  should  be  revealed 
to  him.  The  Catholic  mystic  would,  then,  mistake 
alike  the  nature  of  dogma  and  the  claim  made  on 
his  soul  by  Revealed  Religion,  were  he  to  discard  in 
favour  of  his  individual  insight  the  doctrinal  generali- 
sations *  of  faith '  among  Catholics.  Such  action 
would  be  retrogressive.  He  would  be  substituting 
natural  for  supernatural  mysticism.  For — and  in  this 
is  to  be  found  at  once  its  crux  and  its  only  possible 
justification — Catholicism  claims  to  be  a  super- 
natural religion.^ 

*  Appendix  A. 


14  CATHOLIC  MYSTICISM 

The  claim  made  on  his  soul  by  Revealed  Religion  ! 
Ah  !  here  is  the  rub  ;  in  this  lies  the  *  open  secret  of 
Christianity.'  Let  us  try  to  consider  what  this  claim 
amounts  to.     And  first,  as  to  its  extent. 

Revealed  Religion,  directly  or  indirectly,  claims 
the  whole  man.  It  directly  claims  his  intellect,  his 
belief,  and  the  flowering  of  his  emotional  being,  his 
love.  It  indirectly  claims  his  will.  I  say  indirectly^ 
for  the  service  of  the  will  unprompted  by  love  has 
nothing  to  do  with  Revealed  Religion,  but  belongs  to 
ethics,  which,  as  such,  is  a  conception  wholly  alien  to  a 
system  which  counts  among  its  saints  Thais,  the  peni- 
tent light  o'  love,  and  Moses,  the  converted  negro 
bandit.  This  is  of  course  a  tremendous  claim,  and 
one  may  well  be  surprised  at  the  lightness,  the  le- 
gerete  with  which  so  many,  both  of  those  who  admit 
and  of  those  who  deny,  appear  to  treat  it.  In  return 
for  this  complete  service,  Revealed  Religion  claims  to 
heal,  once  and  for  ever,  the  wound  of  man.  Moreover, 
given  the  Church's  definition  of  that  wound,  there  can 
be  no  doubt  but  that  Catholicism  does  heal  it.  If 
the  Catholic  analysis  of  human  nature  (which  is  by 
no  means  only  held  by  Catholics)  be  once  admitted, 
it  is  impossible  to  resist  the  conclusion  that  the 
Catholic  saint  represents  that  nature  perfectly 
restored.     And  to  say  as  much  as  this  is  to  say  more 


THE  CLAIM  OF  REVEALED  RELIGION  1$ 

than  may  at  first  sight  appear.  For  it  amounts  to 
saying  that  the  resources  of  the  Catholic  system  are 
equal  to  meeting  to  the  full  all  possible  demands  that 
can  logically  be  made  on  it.  It  will,  no  doubt,  be 
said  that  the  natural  logic  of  things  will  account  for 
this.  But  in  human  affairs,  more  particularly  religious 
systems,  is  this  natural  logic  so  very  apparent  ?  Does  j 
not  the  arbitrary,  the  unexpected,  constantly  cut ' 
short  the  line  of  ideal  development  ?  Is  not  religious 
speculation,  in  particular,  a  byword  for  confusion  of 
thought  and  tongue  ?  We,  at  least,  who  come  of 
Protestant  heredity  can  hardly  think  otherwise.  That 
there  should  then  be  just  one  system  among  warring 
theodicies  both  speculatively  and  practically  complete 
is  surely  no  slight  thing,  and  must,  one  would  think, 
arrest  the  inquirer's  attention.  I  do  not  say  that 
alone  it  can  do  more,  but  this,  at  least,  it  would  seem 
it  must  do.  The  question  remains  of  the  value  of 
the  Catholic  analysis  of  man ;  it  is  the  view  taken  of 
this  that  probably  in  all  cases  determines  the  con- 
scious attitude  towards  Revealed  Religion. 

Now  by  the  Catholic  analysis  of  man  I  do  not 
here  mean  the  dogma  of  the  Fall,  which  is  a  revealed 
mystery,  and  as  such  incapable  of  independent 
observation,  but  rather  the  state  in  which,  according 
to  Catholics  and  many  others,  man  finds  himself  on 


THE     "^ 


l6  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

this  planet  This  state  may  be  summed  up  in  one 
word— insufficiency.  Man  is  not  sufficient  to  him- 
self. His  nature  forces  him  to  create  ideals  which 
he  is  incapable  of  attaining ;  on  no  side,  in  no  single 
one  of  his  forms  of  activity,  is  it  given  to  him  to 
realise  the  equation  of  thought  and  being,  of  desire 
and  fact.  The  floating  rocks  of  metaphysical  truth 
are  for  him  enisled  in  the  black  waters  of  scepticism  ; 
his  god-like  reason  can  ultimately  solve  no  con- 
crete problem,  for  the  condition  of  its  inerrancy  is 
to  be  confined  to  the  abstract.  His  deepest  craving 
is  for  happiness,  adequate  to  infinite  desire  and 
permanent  while  the  conditions  and  perhaps  the 
inner  nature  of  life  make  of  such  a  demand  a  bitter 
mockery. 

His  speech  is  a  burning  fire, 

With  his  lips  he  travaileth  ; 

In  his  heart  is  a  blind  desire, 

In  his  eyes  foreknowledge  of  death. 

He  weaves  and  is  clothed  wi^'^derision. 

Sows,  and  he  shall  not  reap  ; 

His  life  is  a  watch  or  a  vision 

Between  a  sleep  and  a  sleep. 

Art  is  the  greatest  glory  of  man.  Has  the 
achievement  ever  once  contented  the  artist's  inmost 
desire  ?  Towards  the  end  of  his  life,  one  who  achieved 
more  than  most,  wrote  these  sad  and  beautiful  words : 


A  SONNET  OF   MICHAEL  ANGELO  1 7 

Giunto  h  gia  '1  corso  della  vita  mia 
Con  tempestoso  mar  per  fragil  barca 
Al  comun  porto,  ov'  a  render  si  varca 
Giusta  ragion  d'  ogni  opra  trista  e  pia  ; 

Onde  1'  affettuosa  fantasia, 
Che  1'  arte  si  fece  idolo  e  monarca, 
Conosco  ben  quant'  era  d'  error  carca  ; 
Ch'  errore  h  ci6  che  1'  uom  quaggiu  desia. 

I  pensier  miei  gik  de'  miei  danni  lieti, 
Che  fian  or  s'  a  due  morti  m'  avvicino  ? 
L'  una  m'  h  certa  e  V  altra  mi  minaccia. 

N^  pinger  n^  scolpir  fia  piii  che  queti 

L'  anima  volta  a  quell'  amor  divino, 

Ch'  aperse  a  prender  noi  in  croce  le  braccia.^ 


'  I  subjoin  the  late  Mr.  Addington  Symonds's  beautiful  translation 
of  this  sonnet  for  its  independent  poetic  value  : 

Now  hath  my  life  across  a  stormy  sea 

Like  a  frail  bark  reached  that  wide  port  where  all  // 

Are  bidden  ere  the  final  judgment  fall  ^ 

Of  good  or  evil  deeds  to  pay  the  fee. 

Now  know  I  well  ho'w  that  fond  phantasy 
Which  made  my  soul  the  worshipper  and  thrall 
Of  earthly  art,  is  vain  ;  how  criminal 
Is  that  which  all  men  seek  unwillingly. 

Those  amorous  thoughts  which  were  so  lightly  dressed, 
What  are  they  when  the  double  death  is  nigh  ? 
The  one  I  know  for  sure,  the  other  dread. 

Painting  nor  sculpture  now  can  lull  to  rest 
My  soul  that  turns  to  His  great  love  on  high 
Whose  arms  to  clasp  us  on  the  cross  were  spread. 


1 8  CATHOLIC  MYSTICISM 

Never  perhaps  did  a  man  achieve  so  much  in  such 
varied  ways  as  this  child  of  the  gods.  Michael 
Angelo  succeeded  supremely  as  sculptor,  painter, 
poet,  lover ;  yet  this  is  what  he  has  to  say  of  his 
success.  And  the  mass  of  men  who  are  not  artists 
with  their  painted  joys,  their  pale,  imitative  pleasures, 
their  deliberate  raptures,  their  borrowed  wisdom, 
their  swift-coming  death,  what  of  them  ? 

It  is  attempted  nowadays  to  turn  the  force  of 
such  reflections  by  insisting  on  the  social  rather  than 
the  individual  aspect  of  man.  In  tribe-work,  mob- 
morality  as  Nietzche  calls  it,  man  is  to  find  individual 
happiness.  Yet  what  can  be  more  absurd  ?  We  do 
not  know  what  it  is  we  want  ourselves,  and  we  pro- 
pose to  begin  by  giving  it  to  others !  Surely  the 
utmost  a  man  can  do  for  his  fellow  is  to  put  him  in 
a  condition  in  which  he  can  seek  his  own  happiness, 
can  ask  and  answer  his  own  riddle  in  his  own  way. 
Conceivably  through  centuries  of  altruistic  effort 
which  would  be  futile  if  not  based  on  the  ruthless 
extermination  of  those  unfit  to  survive,  society  might 
reach  such  a  stage  of  development  as  that  health  and 
work  and  comfort  should  be  open  to  all.  But  the 
question  of  what  to  do  with  these  advantages,  how  to 
invest  this  precious  capital,  would  still  gnaw  at  the 
brain   of  each  solitary  human   being."    It  was   the 


HAPPINESS   AND   ITS  CONDITIONS  I9 

inability  to  see  this  distinction  between  the  nature  of 
happiness  and  its  conditions  that  led  Sainte-Beuve 
to  say  of  Pascal's  argument  for  Christianity  :  *  II  est 
bien  vrai  en  efifet  que  le  jour  ou,  soit  machinalement 
soit  a  la  reflexion,  I'aspect  du  monde  n'ofifrirait  plus 
de  myst^re,  n'inspirerait  plus  surtout  aucun  effroi ;  ou 
ce  que  Pascal  appelle  la  perversite  humaine  ne 
semblerait  plus  que  I'^tat  naturel  et  necessaire  d'un 
fonds  mobile  et  sensible.  .  .  .  le  jour  ou  le  coeur 
humain  se  flatterait  d'avoir  combl^  son  abime ;  ou 
cette  terre  d'exil,  ddja  riante  et  commode,  le  serait 
devenue  au  point  de  laisser  oublier  toute  patrie  d'au 
de\k  et  de  paraitre  la  demeure  definitive — ce  jour- 
la  I'argu  mentation  de  Pascal  aura  fl^chi.'  The  great 
critic  cautiously  adds :  *  Mais  la  mani^re  de  juger 
depend  beaucoup  ici  de  la  maniere  de  sentir,  et  c'est 
a  chacun  de  voir  si  un  tel  jour  est  ou  n'est  pas  en 
train  d'arriver.*  ^ 

It  is  instructive  to  compare  with  Sainte-Beuve's 
method  of  handling  the  question,  the  view  of  a  living 
English  thinker,  who  sees  the  problem  more  truly. 
'For,  as  increasing  wealth  and  civilisation  set  a 
greater  proportion  of  mankind  free  from  the  constant 
pressure  of  mere  bodily  wants,  the  pressure  of 
spiritual  needs   becomes   more  clearly    felt   and    is 

*  Port-Royal^  tome  iii.  p.  331. 

C  2 


20  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

increased  by  every  advance  which  is  made  in  intelli- 
gence and  culture.      The   more  we   succeed   in  re- 
moving such  of  the  evils  and  limitations  of  life  as  can 
be  removed,  the  more  clearly  do  those  which  cannot 
be  removed  reveal  themselves,  and  the  more  impera- 
jtive  becomes   the  demand  for  some  assurance  that 
I  these    also  are  transitory,  and  that  all  things  work 
'together  for  good.     Nor  does  this  tendency  of  our 
J  C   nature   deserve  to  be  called,   as   it  often    is   called, 
""^  either  selfish  or  abstract.     If  we  care  for  virtue  we 
can   scarcely  fail   to  be   interested  in   the   ultimate 
righteousness  or  iniquity  of  the  universe,  as  judged 
by   our  moraMdeals^    If  we  care  for  the  men  and 
m/      women    we   know,   it  seems  not   unnatural  that  we 
V*   '^    c  should  sometimes  ask  ourselves  what — if  anything — 
0-^^  will  happen  to  them  when  their  bodies  have  ceased 

to  exist.'  ^ 

Now  as  regards  the  fact  of  man's  insufficiency, 
most  people  who  take  the  trouble  to  consider  the 
matter  will  agree.  Certain  noisy  and  genial  ojies_ 
there  may  be  who  '  pity  the  poor  neurotic  who  can 
say,  Man  that  is  born  of  a  woman  hath  but  a  shoi^t 
time  to  live  and  is  full  of  misery!  but  have  such  frati 
gaudenti  ever  lived  themselves  ?  Does  not  life,  real 
life,  appeal  as  little  to  them  as  the  great  art  of  the 

'  McTaggart,  Studies  in  Hegelian  Dialectic,  pp.  257-8. 


THE   FAILURE  OF  MAN  21 

world  !     The   Bible  means  no   more   to  them  than     ( -  '^ 


*  Shakespeare,'   but  then   *  Shakespeare '   means    so    ^    ,       .  ^ 
little.  K^o-^*^ 

On  the  cause  of  this  insufficiency  of  man,  however, 
thinkers  are  divided.  Those  who  incline  to  a 
materialistic  monism,  in  which  mind  is  nothing  but  a 
manifestation  of  matter  when  the  latter  has  reached 
a  certain  degree  of  complexity,  are,  by  their  philosophi- 
cal position,  precluded  from  attributing  permanent 
value  to  any  mood  of  mind  as  such.  On  this  view 
man  is  discontented  because  he  is  imperfect,  and  he 
is  imperfect  because  he  is  in  process  of  develop- 
ment. There  is  no  such  thing  as  personality,  which 
is  but  the  sum  of  human  conditions  mechanically 
resulting  in  the  illusion  of  individual  consciousness. 
Hence  the  amelioration  of  his  conditions  will  neces- 
sarily improve  man,  for  being  nothing  but  their 
product,  he  inevitably  changes  with  them.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  metaphysicians  of  Spirit,  from  Plato  to 
Hegel,  recognise,  some  more  and  some  less  fully,  this 
wound  of  human  kind. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  do  more  than  indicate  in 
this  country  the  Christian  theory.  I  quote  Mr. 
Illingworth's  admirable  statement  of  this  view,  in 
which  the  cause  of  man's  insufficiency  is  sin.     *  Sin, 


22  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

or  moral  evil,  is  a  part  of  our  total  human  experience 
which  philosophy  is  bound  to  take  into  account ;  and 
sin,  though  primarily  due  to  the  will,  has  infected  the 
bodily  organism  of  the  whole  human  race  ;  moral  and 
physical   depravity   mingling  with  and  reacting  on 
each  other,  till  the  entire  resultant  may  be  spoken  of 
as  the  *  body  of  this  death,'  a  complex  whole  in  which 
it  is  impossible  to  disentangle  the  spiritual  element 
from  the  diseased  conditions  and  perverted  functions 
of  organ   and    tissue  which  personal  and   ancestral 
sins  have  brought  about.'  ^     Mr.  Illingworth  goes  on 
to  point  out  that  this  state  of  things  indicates  *  a  real 
breach  of  universal  order — a  miracle  in  the  objection- 
able sense  of  the  term,'  fittingly  diagnosed  in  the  New 
Testament   as   dvo/ula   or   lawlessness.    iFor  sin  has 
resulted  from  the  refusa.1  of  man  to  obey  the  most 
intimate    law_  of  his  nature,  to  serve  righteousness, 
discernible  to  him  in  the  immemorial  conception  of 
the  Law  of  God.     This  '  sense  of  sin '  is  not  only  due 
to  Hebrew  or  Christian  revelation  ;   engraved  in  the 
universal  heart  of  man,  it  stalks  through  the  pages  of 
the  Greek  dramatist  and  the  Oriental  sage.     Nor  is 
there  abetter  expression  of  it  than  the  hymn  of  a  saint 
who  was  neither  Jew  nor  Christian  : — 

*  Illingworth,  Divine  Inwianence^  p.  92. 


'  SIN  '  23 

Thus  dost  Thou  harmonise  into  one  all  good  and  evil  things, 

That  there  should  be  one  everlasting  reason  of  them  all, 

And  this,  the  evil  among  mortal  men  avoid  and  heed  not. 

Wretched,  ever  desiring  to  possess  the  good, 

Yet  they  nor  see  nor  hear  the  universal  Law  of  God, 

Which  obeying  with  all  their  heart,  their  life  would  be  well. 

BotHhey  rush  graceless,  each  to  his  pwn  ainii 

Some  cherishing  lust  for  fame,  the  nurse  of  evil  strife. 

Some  bent  on  monstrous  gain. 

Some  turned  to  folly  and  the  sweet  works  of  the  flesh. 

Hastening  indeed  to  bring  the  very  contrary  of  these  things  to 

pass. 
But  Thou,  oh  Zeus,  the  All-giver,  dweller  in  the  darkness  of 

Cloud, 
Lord  of  Thunder,  save  Thou  men  from  their  unhappy  folly. 
Which  do  Thou,  oh  Father,  scatter  from  their  souls  and  give 

them 
To  discover  the  Wisdom,  in  whose  assurance  Thou  governest 
All  things  with  justice  ; 

So  that,  being  honoured,  they  may  pay  Thee  honour, 
Hymning  Thy  works  continually  as  it  beseems  a  mortal  man. 
Since  there  canbejnp_greatei^j^lQi:yL  for  men  nor  gods  than 

this. 
Duly  to  place  for  ever  the  universal  Law.^ 

The  recognition  of  sin  as  the  cause  of  human 
disorder  and  consequent  misery,  ngjJbsJng^QQn fined 
to  the  explicitly  Christian  conscien^  cannot  be 
merely  the  subj£ctiye_efiect  of  Christian  belief.     And 

*  Cleanthes'  Hymn  to  Zeus. 


24  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

the  apologist  does  not,  as  is  sometimes  supposed, 
argue  in  a  circle  when  he  appeals  to  this  endemic 
recognition  as  the  base  on  which  he  proposes  to 
erect  the  edifice  of  his  own  creed,  as  the  fullest 
explanation  of,  and,  assuming  its  reality,  the  sovereign 
remedy  for,  this  terrible  disease.  For  whether  these 
self-judgments  and  terrors  of  the  *  natural  man,'  are 
the  dying  rays  of  some  paradisaical  illumination,  or 
the  appropriate  expression  of  the  human  conscious- 
ness when  it  reaches  the  level  of  religious  activity, 
they  are  equally  extra- Christian.  And  more  than 
this  is  not  required  by  the  logic  of  his  position. 

'  Our  hypothetical  pilgrim  in  quest  of  revelation 
will  undoubtedly  be  arrested  by  this  phenomenon. 
As  a  '  natural '  mystic  he  has  learned  not  to  live  in 
-the Joose- fitting  habit  of  sensory  experience,  to  dig 
deeper  in  his  search  for  reality  than  superfluous 
abstractions  or  physical  generalisations.  Nature  in- 
deed has  always  seemed  haunted  to  him,  but  it  is 
just  this  illusive  suggestion  of  a  _Presence_  that  has 
passed,  this  Real  Absence  from  the  only  Eucharist  that 
can  be  celebrated  on  Nature's  altars,  that  constitute] 
for  him  his  sacrament  of  despair.  Arrived  sgjaf  h 
will  find  nothing  incongruous  in  the  claim  of 
Christianity  to  be  received  as  supernatural.  Indeed, 
he  may  fairly  go  further  and   find  that  claim,  not 


THE  *  SUPERNATURAL  2$ 

only  not  incongruous,  but  inevitable.  On  this  wise, 
or  not  at  all,  must  the  birth  of  Christianity  be.  For 
he  knows,  by  experience,  that  what  is  called  the 
'  natural  order  '  does  not  satisfy  him.  He  is  for  ever 
at  war  with  that  order,  and  at  war  by  what  would 
seem  to  be  a  necessary  law  of  his  being.  When, 
then  the  first  thing  that  Christianity  tells  him  is  that 
the  race,  as  a  whole,  has  lapsed  from  a  higher 
order,  restoratioo-to  which  involves,  first  of  all  its 
A^i^ostulation,  and  secondly,  the  use  of  means  which, 
when  contrasted  .with  the  fallen  habit  of  man,  are 
appropriately  described  as(sup£|[natiiral,  such  a  con-^ 


ception,  far  from  throwing  his  ideas  into  confusion,  ^^*"^  '^ 

appears  to  be  just  what  is  required  in  order  to  fulfil 

and  justify  those^^oflhem-jadlichjie  the  deepest.     He 

feels  that  whether  there  be  a  God  or  not,  whether  the 

Catholic  mythos  be  a  fairy  tale  or  the  least  inade- 

/        quate  expression  of  Eternal  Truth,  in  this  life  only 

t^T^  /  he.  as  an  individual  at  all  events,  has  no  hope.     He 

■"Is  told  to  work  for  the  race  within  the  scope  provided 

by  the  natural  order,  but  the  same  order  tells  him 

most     unmistakably    that    the    ethical    and     ideal 

qualities   of  man    (the   only  human  qualities  which 

cause  him  to  take  any  interest  in  his  fellows)  have 

only  been  accidentally  developed  in  the  course  of  a 

material  evolution  the  purpose  of  which  is   utterly 


26  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

inscrutable,  and  the  end  of  which  is  rapidly  approach- 
ing in  the  universal  death  which  must  overtake  man 
and  all  his  works  when  the  planet  chills.  To  suppose 
that  the  personality  of  man  orjiis  satisfaction  is  the 
goal_of  that  evolution  would  be  a  grotesque  superstn 
tion^indeed^  }  Either,  then,  there  is  no  possibility  of 
such  satisfaction,  or  it  must  be  found  in  a  super- 
natural orden 

The  supernatural  order,  as  such,  cannot  of  course 
find  counterproof  in  the  natural.  If  the  natural  order 
be  assumed  to  exhaust  reality  the  supernatural  must  be 
utterly  ii^redible,  for  the  natural  order  only  exists  in 
virtue  of  a  theory  of  causation,  or  rather  of  persistence 
of  force,  with  which  the  idea  of  the  supernatural  is  in- 
compatible. And  this  applies  equally  to  all  miracles. 
That  the  intervention  of  any  cause  other  than  the 
persistence  of  one  and  the  same  force  in  varied  mani- 
festation should  ever  occur  within  the  sphere  of 
observable  phenomena  is  on  *  natural '  grounds, 
simply  a  deliramentum.  /The  free-will  of  man,  if  held 
to  mean  an  undetermined  independent  direction  by 
the  human  personality  of  any  action  whatever  is  as 
absurdyas  a  resurrection  from  the  dead/ 

The  important  thing  to  note  about  this  is  that  it 
has  no  bearing  on  the  question  whether  the  super- 
natural order  exist,  j  For,  supposing   that   order   to 


'NATURE*  AND  'MIRACLES'  27 

exist,  it  will  be  evidently  impossible  to  trace  it  in  the 
*  natural '  order  which^^by^hypoill^sis,  it  transcends.  J 
Moreover  it  will  be  equally  impossible  to  verify,  by 
natural  methods  alone,  such  an  intersection  of  the 
two  orders  as  is  implied  in  a  miracle.  However 
strange  and  unprecedented  an  event  may  be,  an 
investigator  who  relies  on  the  assumption  that  the 
natural  order  exhausts  reality  is  logically  forced,  at 
the  cost  of  sacrificing  that  assumption  (on  which  all 
his  physical  science  is  based),  to  refuse  to  admit  such 
an  intersection. 

*  Miraculous '  phenomena  undoubtedly  occur  in 
the  modern  as  they  did  in  the  apostolic  Church. 
Setting  aside  the  hypothesis  of  deliberate  and 
revolting  fraud,  there  is  no  '  natural '  explanation  ot 
many  of  the  rigorously  attested  phenomena  connected 
with  the  late  Louise  Lateau  of  Bois  d'Haine.^  Is  a 
scientific  man  obliged  in  consequence  to  admit  a 
miracle  in  the  theological  sense  ?  Not  in  the  least. 
He  is  of  course  face  to  face  with  a  difficulty.  But 
nature  is  full  of  difficulties.  Such  a  difficulty,  and  a 
much  more  crucial  one,  is  the  impossibility  of  proving 
experimentally  the  evolution  of  life  from  not-life.  It 
was  thought  at  one  time  that  experiments  would 
prove  *  spontaneous  generation.'     Those  experiments 

'    F.  Appendix  B. 


28  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

have  been  tried  and  they  have  failed.  Here,  then,  is 
a  gap  in  our  scientific  knowledge  of  nature.  But 
whether  the  problem  be  the  origin  of  organic  life  or 
the  means  by  which  a  saint  distinguishes  between 
the  Sacred  Host  and  unconsecrated  bread,  no  theory 
can  be  less  plausible  to  a  man  of  science  than  one 
which  would  compel  him  to  admit  an  exception  to 
the  law  of  the  identity  and  persistence  of  force,  for 
the  universality  of  that  law  represents  the  assumption 
on  which  the  whole  of  his  scientific  knowledge  rests. 
These  arguments  may,  however,  appear  to  prove 
too  much.  Admitting,  it  will  be  said,  that  natural 
methods  can  neither  prove  nor  refute  the  super- 
natural thesis,  does  not  the  problem  of  the  super- 
natural become  essentially  a  question  of  lunar 
politics  ?  And,  in  a  certain  sense,  this  does  follow 
from  what  has  been  said.  The  question  of  the 
supernatural  is  not  only  impossible  to  answer  from 
the  natural  point  of  view,  but,  from  that  point  of 
view,  ought  never  even  to  be  proposed.  The  only 
question  is  whether  that  point  of  view  is  the  only 
one — that  is  to  say,  whether  that  assumption  of  the 
unity  of  the  material  universe  expressed  in  the 
doctrine  of  the  identity  and  persistence  of  force, 
admittedly,  the  necessary /r/«i-  of  ordered  knowledge 
of  the  universe  as  expressed  in  terms  of  inevitable 


THE  LOGIC  OF  REVEALED  RELIGION  29 

sensory  experience  is  equally  the  necessary /r^W  of 
every  other  mode  of  viewing  it.  I  do  not  see  how 
the  shadow  of  a  plausible  reason  can  be  produced  for 
thinking  it  is  so. 

The  inevitable  sensory  experience  of  the  universe 
considered  as  a  collection  of  physical  objects  existing 
independently  of  himself  (the  orderly  arrangement 
of  which  is  the  function,  and  the  only  function,  of 
natural  science),  is  but  a  small  part  of  man's  experi- 
ence. Why,  then,  should  the  canons  of  natural 
science  claim  to  rule  the  whole  of  his  experience  ? 
Man  experiences  his  own  personality,  his  own  power 
of  spontaneous  action,  his  ethical  and-  aesthetic 
judgments,  his  craving  for  love  and  joy,  and  God, 
and  in  a  measure  the  satisfaction  of  that  craving. 
All  these  things  are  quite  outside  the  methods  of 
natural  science.  Right,  Beauty,  Will,  God,  Love, 
are  mere  nonsense-words,  so  many  *  miracles,'  in  fact, 
if  the  fundamental  assumption  of  natural  science 
exhausts  reality.  And  yet  man  undoubtedly  experi- 
ences these  things,  and,  if  intensity  and  permanence 
are  any  test  of  reality,  they  should  be  the  most  real 
elements  of  his  experience.  Physical  science,  in  the 
modern  sense  of  the  word,  is  a  thing  of  yesterday ; 
the  perceptions  of  Right  and  Beauty  are  older  than 
the   hills,   about    whose    geological    formation    our 


30  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

professors  tell  us  so  much  ;  it  is  the  monopoly  of  a 
small  group  of  races  ;  some  sort  of  spiritual  percep- 
tion seems  to  be  almost,  if  not  quite,  universal  to  man, 
for  man  invariably  expresses  himself  in  his  style 
good  or  bad  and,  as  Mr.  Pater  says,  *  soul  as  a  quality 
of  style  is  a  fact'  But  it  is  a  fact  which  natural 
science  cannot  consider  otherwise  than  as  an  illusion. 
A  man  of  mystical  temperament,  one,  that  is,  who 
experiences  more  immediately  the  impact  of  these 
spiritual  forces  than  the  itch  of  physical  curiosity, 
will  never  allow  that  in  the  contentm.ent  of  the 
latter  lies  the  complete  and  sole  explanation  of  the 
former.  To  do  so  would  be  for  him  to  admit  the 
less  known  as  the  key  to  the  better  known.  For  the 
ideas  of  God  and  the  soul  and  the  rest  do  not  hang 
round  his  mind  a  mere  fringe  of  arbitrary  and 
inexplicable  fact,  a  not-self  embroidered  on  the  self 
by  the  play  of  the  logical  impulse ;  they  spring 
together  with  his  consciousness  from  the  fount  of  his 
being ;  their  source,  like  his  own,  he  cannot  see. 
And  their  reality  may  well  stand  or  fall  with  that 
of  the  most  immediate  element  in  his  own  experience, 
his  personality,  for  which  natural  science  can  make 
no  provision.^ 

To  the  man  of  mystical  temperament  as  above 

*  V.  Appendix  C. 


-^         THE   INTERNAL  ORDER  3 1 

defined,  and  to  him  only,  is  the  message  of  the 
Church  addressed.  Such  an  one  alone  keeps  his  head 
and  heart  cool  in  the  midst  of  the  bewildering  rush 
of  appearances  ;  such  an  one  alone  truly  craves  for  an 
Ultimate  Reality  that  shall  be  not  merely  an  abstrac- 
tion of  his  mind,  but  whose  embrace  shall  content  his 
whole  concrete  being.  To  this  frame  of  mind 
Revealed  Religion  irresistibly  appeals.  For  though 
Catholic  dogma  is  not  in  itself  ultimate  in  the  sense 
of  being  final  and  complete  (the  Apostle  tells  us  that 
we  see  and  know  but  in  part),  the  Catholic  or 
Revealed  Religion  in  which  its  Dogma  is  but  an 
element,  though  a  necessary  one,  is  life  in  the  ultimate 
Reality.  Catholicism  does  not  indeed  present  us 
with  any  pseudo-philosophy,  attempting  to  sound  in 
detail  the  relations  of  God  with  external  phenomenal 
disorder,  but  reveals  to  us  the  interior  universe  of 
man,  where  all  no  doubt  is  mystery,  but  all  is  most 
intimately  real.  Here  the  darkness  gradually  lightens, 
and  the  dim  forms  of  a  perfect  Order,  in  which  God 
is  All  in  All,  stand  revealed.  The  human  soul,  fixed 
at  last  on  God,  her  true  centre,  slowly  feels  her  way  to 
a  perfect  equilibrium.  All  her  powers,  the  mysterious 
forces  of  physical  instinct,  no  less  than  the  flights  of 
pure  intellect,  come  by  degrees  to  expose  themselves 
in  their  true  hierarchy,  an  order  so  inevitable  in  its 


32  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

gradual  development,  so  convincing  in  its  final 
achievement,  that  the  poet's  words  are  seen  to  be  after 
all  but  sober  fact — 

By  Grace  Divine,  not  otherwise, 
O  Nature,  are  we  thine. 

It  is  this  psychological  experience  that  constitutes 
the  justification  of  the  claim  of  Revealed  Religion. 
It  may  now  perhaps  be  easier  to  see  the  true  place 
of  dogma  in  the  Act  of  Faith.  God  alone  is  of 
course  the  ultimate  Term  of  that  Act.  The  Creed 
begins  with  the  words  :  Credo  in  Deum.  We  do  not 
make  an  Act  of  Faith  in  dogma  as  such,  but  in 
dogma  as,  and  because,  revealed  by  God.  In  other 
words,  while  the  Divine  Being  is  the  essential  end  of 
Faith,  the  dogmatic  content  of  the  Act  of  Faith  is 
necessary  only  with  what  theologians  call  necessitas 
"fnedii  as  distinguished  from  necessitas  finis.  In  that 
Act  we  bow  the  will  to  the  mysterious  Will  of  God 
revealing,  we  make  no  arbitrary  assertion  of  person- 
ally acquired  knowledge.  Catholic  Dogma  is  therefore 
supremely  'true'  because,  and  only  because,  it  is 
revealed  as  such  by  Almighty  God.  Its  truth  is  not 
relative  to  the  intellectual  power  which  cognises  it,  but 
depends  on  theveracityof  God  who,in  the  simple  words 
of  the  Catechism,  can  neither  deceive  nor  be  deceived. 
This  economy  of  belief  is  the  radical  difference 


THE   CHURCH   AND  THE   SECTS  33 

between  Catholicism  and  all  forms  of  non-Catholic 
Christianity.  It  is  so  because  unless  the  authority  of 
the  revealing  Deity  be  expressed  through  a  delegated 
phenomenal  medium,  which  by  the  necessity  of  the 
case  must  be  held  to  be  infallible,  it  ceases  to  play  a 
real  part  in  a  world  of  phenomena,  or  to  have  the 
power  of  eliciting  a  real  Act  of  Faith  on  the  part  of 
the  believer.  For,  on  any  other  hypothesis,  whether 
that  of  an  infallible  primitive  Church,  which  lost  its 
power  of  teaching  just  when  it  was  most  needed  (at  the 
moment,  that  is  to  say,  of  division),  or  of  that  vaguest 
of  all  illusions,  'Bible  Christianity,' the  act  of  belief  is 
no  longer  a  submission  to  authority,  but  an  act  of 
conscious  selection.  It  is  no  longer  faith  but  opinion 
charged  with  religious  emotion.  Three  hundred  years 
ago  Protestants  did  not  think  otherwise,  and  the  Bible 
merely  superseded  the  Church.  No  one  of  the  inno- 
vators then  doubted  the  capacity  of  the  Sacred 
Book  to  do  this.  But  since  then  a  double  series  of 
objections  to  the  Protestant  thesis  has  been  developed, 
and  to  an  outsider  at  least  it  seems  as  if  their  com- 
bined effect  must  in  the  long  run  be  fatal. 

Protestants  are  logically  tied  to  a  special  theory 
of  inspiration  which  becomes  daily  harder  to  main- 
tain against  the  increased  knowledge  of  the  history 
of    the    sacred    documents    derived    from    modern 

V 


34  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

criticism.  \^To  afford  the  necessary  Igy^for  an  act 
of  faith,  that  inspiration  must  be  strictly  yecbal, 
entire,  and  final ;  if  it  be  possible  to  dispute  in  any 
way  the  truth  or  finality  of  any  statement  contained 
in  the  holy  writings,  the  whole  Protestant  position 
falls  to  the  ground,  just  as  the  Catholic  position 
would  fall  were  it  possible  to  dispute  a  single  dog- 
matic ruling  of  the  Church.  J  No  theory  of  different 
degrees  of  inspiration  will  serye,  since  it  is  obyious 
that  only  an  equally  inspired  authority  would  be 
competent  to  determine  so  sacred  and  delicate  a 
matter,  and  it  is  the  basis  of  the  whole  Protestant 
position  that  no  such  equally  inspired  authority 
exists^  So  much  for  theory.  In  practice,  when  men 
haye  got  their  Bible  they  still  haye  to  determine 
what  iti)  means.  tAnd  apart  from  the  question  of 
•^competence  to  do  so,  it  is  a  patent  fact  that  on  the 
determination  of  that  meaning  they  do  not  agree. 

Supposing,  moreoyer,  these  tmx  difficulties  settled, 
the  fact  would  remain  that  the  Bible  does  not  con- 
tain creeds  but  principles.  [The  creed  has  to  be 
inferred  from  the  principles.!  The  connexion  between 
the  inferences  accepted  by  Christendom  as  dogma 
(and  in  particular  by  all  orthodox  Protestants)  is  in 
some  cases  yery  vague,,  [_The  fully  developed  Nicene^ 
doctrine  of  the  Holy  Trinity,  for  instance,  cannot  b^ 


THE  JBANKRUPTCY   OF   PROTESTANTISM         35 


strictly  inferred  from  the  formula  of  Baptism  and 
the  gloss  in  St.  John's  Epistle.  And  as  a  matter  of 
positive  history  we  know  that  it  was  not  so  inferred. 
Other  than  Jewish iradiiions, went  to  make  it:  with- 
out the  Platonist  doctrine  of  the  Logos  it  could  not 
have  been  expressed  ;  its  guarantee  to  Christendom 
was  the  decision  of  an  CEcumenical  Council  ratified 
by  a  Pope.  The  Protestant  who  labours  to  remove 
what  he  considers  the  debris  of  ecclesiastical  Chris- 
tianity, in  order  to  discover  beneath  it  the  pure 
religion  of  the  Apostles,  is  in  the  position  of  a  man 
who  should  spend  his  time  in  scraping  layer  after 
layer  of  sand  from  a  piece  of  sandstone,  thinking 
thus  to  come  at  the  rock  itself;  he  does  not 
realise  that  it  is  the  rock  itself  that  he  is  destroying. 
There  is  a  good  instance  of  this  misunderstanding 
on  the  part  of  one  who  would  have  objected  very 
much  to  being  called  a  Protestant.  It  was  the 
opinion  of  the  late  Matthew  Arnold  that  the  religion 
of  the  future  would  be  '  Catholicism  purged,'  and 
'  opening  itself  to  the  light,'  '  conscious  of  its  own  1 
poetry,  freed  from  its  sacerdotal  despotism,  and 
from  its  pseudo-scientific  apparatus  of  superannuated 
dogma.'  Once  understand  that  it  is  not  as  fact  that 
dogma  is,  humanly  speaking,  valuable,  but  as  the  key 
to  the  mysteries  of  the  soul,  as  the  successive  land- 

02 


36  CATHOLIC    MYSTICISM 

marks  of  man's  interior  development ;  while  so  far 
as  imposed  on  us  as  fact,  it  is  so  imposed,  not  as 
deduction  from  observation  or  historical  knowledge, 
(and  not  therefore  as  implying  knowledge  pseudo- 
scientific  or  otherwise  on  our  part),  but  on  the 
authority  of  the  Church,  whom  we  know  inde- 
pendently through  her  Notes,  and  the  sure  '  mercies 
of  David '  to  be  the  true  mother  of  our  souls,  the 
perspective  of  the  case  alters,  f 

It  will,  I  know,  be  said  that  any  assertion  of  fact, 
no  matter  ,by  whom  it  is  made,  comes,  as  such, 
legitimately  under  the  sanction  of  scientific  criticism, 
and  that  such  criticism  by  no  means  bears  out  the 
statements  of  the  Church  in  the  region  of  '  dogmatic 
facts.'  Now,  setting  aside  the  question  as  to  whether 
the  scientific  criticism  of  the  New  Testament  has 
always,  when  destructive,  been  exercised  in  an  impar- 
tial {i,e.  a  scientific)  spirit,  it  is  evident  that  the 
historical  case  against  the  Church's  statements  on 
the  origin  of  Christianity,  is,  as  far  as  it  goes, 
circumstantial  only.  I  mean  that  no  one  has 
collected  authentie  records  giving  a  different  account 
of  the  life  of  the  Founder.  The  utmost  that 
can  be  said  from  the  historical  point  of  view  is,  that 
the  evidence  producible  for  the  Church's  story  is  not 
as  strong  as  it  might  be,  and  that  on  certain  points 


THE  ORGANIC   CHURCH   AS  WITNESS  37 

(some  would  say)  it  is  fatally  weak.  Of  course 
various  ingenious  theories  have  been  devised,  to  show 
how,  the  facts  being  otherwise,  the  Church's  belief 
came  to  be  what  it  was.  \But  they  are  theories 
expressly  constructed  to  meet  that  disparity  of  fact 
and  belief,  while  that  disparity  itself,  in  the  absence 
of  positive  evidence,  can  only  rest  on  grounds  on 
which,  as  Mr.  Balfour  says,  *  it  is  for  philosophy,  not 
history,  to  pronounce.'\  Now  circumstantial  evidence, 
in  the  absence  of  any  other,  may  rightly  decide 
a  case,  though  the  history  of  the  law  courts  is  there 
to  show  what  appalling  mistakes  it  may  sometimes 
occasion,  but  the  greatest  amount  of  it  is  at  once 
nullified  by  the  appearance  on  the  other  side  of 
a  single  credible  eye-witness.  And  the  Church  is  in 
far  more  than  that  position  towards  her  children. 
I  For  how  does  the  case  stand  for  Catholics  ?  '  To 
begin  with,  they  believe,  rightly  or  wrongly,  that  the 
Notes  of  the  Church  have  never  been  seriously 
refuted.  They  believe  on  grounds  of  observation 
and  reason,  which  are  open  to  all  competently 
educated  persons,  that  the  continued  life  of  the 
Church  as  we  know  her  to  be  through  so  many 
centuries,  and  in  spite  of  so  many  obstacles  to  her 
continued  existence  both  within  and  without,  con- 
stitutes a  phenomenon  as   surely  transcendental  as 


38  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

it  is  undoubtedly  unparalleled.^  '  Now  the  Church 
orders  us  to  believe,  under  pain  of  separation  from 
God,  a  number  of  more  or  less  incredible  things, 
— incredible,  that  is,  if  the  test  of  their  credibility 
be  reason  or  observation.  She  claims  as  coming 
herself  from  God  to  teach  us  these  things  on  the 
authority  of  God,  irrespective  of  any  possible  cor- 
roboration from  any  other  source  whatever,  for  she 
it  is  of  whom  the  very  Scriptures  testify.  She  claims 
in  her  dogmatic  system  to  condense,  as  it  were,  the 
supernatural  order  into  a  form  accessible  to  man.' 
IShe  is  not  from  the  natural  point  of  view  more  or 
less  improbable  :  from  that  point  of  view  she  is 
frankly  impossible,  and  it  is  just  this  impossibility, 
that  renders  her  credible,  as,  of  old,  Tertullian  saw. 
No  one  can  believe  in  the  improbable,  but  one  can 
have  faith  in  the  impossible.  If  the  Catholic  dog- 
matic system  were  merely  presented  as  a  hitherto 
overlooked  phenomenon,  verifiable  by  the  ordinary 
methods  of  phenomenal  science,  though  running 
counter  to  the  rest  of  our  phenomenal  experience, 
it  would  merely  be  in  the  highest  degree  improbable 
and  hence  quite  incredible.  And  this  would  seem 
to  be  the  way  in  which  Protestantism  does  present 

1  The  word  '  transcendental '  is  here  used  in  a  strictly  relative,  and 
not  in  the  technically  philosophical,  sense. 


THE   MYSTERY  OF  DOGMA  39 

itself.  (Briefly,  we  can  no  longer  be  Christians  in  the 
Protestant  sense  of  the  word,  but  that  furnishes 
no  shadow  of  a  reason  why  we  should  not  be 
Catholics^ 

The  dogmata  of  the  Church  are  known  among 
Catholics  by  the  name  of  mystery.  They  are  truths^ 
encased  in  language  often  more  or  less  figurative' 
The  mystery  of  the  war  in  Heaven  between  Michael 
and  the  Dragon  may  be  taken  as  a  leading  instance 
of  this.  We  do  not  in  the  least  know  what  angels 
are,  nor  does  the  Church  tell  us  anything  about  them, 
except  that  they  are  beings  superior  to  ourselves  in 
the  scale  of  creation,  and  capable  of  giving  an 
intellectual  worship  to  God.  To  apply  the  term 
'  war '  to  any  proceedings  of  such  beings  is  evidently 
a  highly  figurative  use  of  language.  But  it  may  be 
true  as  far  as  it  goes.  Impossible  as  it  may  be  to 
know  exactly  what  is  meant  by  the  Fall  of  Lucifer, 
the  mystery  has  a  very  important  psychological 
bearing.  [For  it  removes  the  origin  of  evil  from  the 
wilLolman  to  that  of  a  su^eriorbeing  through  whose 
.solicitation  man  was  himself  afterwards  to  fall  1  Evil 
is,  then,  an  accidental,  not  an  essential _mood  of  mag, 
and  the  Calvinistic  view  of  original  sin  becomes  an 
absurdity.  Moreover  the  objection  to  the  commonly 
received  theological  view  of  the  connexion  of  physical 


40  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

evil  and  suffering  throughout  the  economy  of  nature 
with  moral  evil,  which  arises  from  the  consideration  of 
the  long  ages  during  which  the  sufferings  of  brutes 
must  have  preceded  the  very  existence  of  man  on  the 
planetjjs  met  by  the  fact  that  it  was  the  fall  of  Lucifer 
taihei.  than  that  of  Adam  which  introduced  for  thejBrst. 
time  moral  evil  with  all  its  possible  consequences  into 
the  Creatiojii  In  the  same  way  it  will  be  found  that 
the  most  apparently  cryptic  dogmata  when  considered 
in  their  relation  to  man,  ^.  in  their  Jiuman  corollaries 
and  consequences,  are  of  the  highest  psychological 
value.  And  though  they  have  to  be  stated  in  creeds 
and  formularies,  apart  from  the  consideration  of  such 
corollaries  their  real  life,  their  full  truth, Ja  not  to  be 
found  in  any  abstract  statement,  but  in  their  progres- 
sive fructification  in  the  heart  of  man.  *  Nunc  vero 
liberati  a  peccato,  servi  autem  facti  Deo,  habetis 
fructum  vestrum  in  sanctificationem,  finem  vero 
vitam  eternam.  Stipendia  enim  peccati  mors.'  ^  The 
saint  alone  is  the  real  proof  of  Christianity,  he  alone 
renders  its  dark  sayings  intelligible.  '  The  obligatory 
dogmata  of  the  Church,'  says  Coventry  Patmore,  '  are 
only  the  seeds  of  life.'  The  justification  of  the 
Church,  then,  does  not  lie  in  the  corroboration  of 
human  science  as  to  the  authenticity  of  her  Scriptures 
'  St.  Paul  the  Apostle,  in  his  letter  to  the  Romans. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL   TRUTH   OF    CATHOLICISM      41 

or  the  occurrence  of  her  miracles.  The  psychological 
value  of  her  claims  would  be  entirely  unaffected  by 
the  simultaneous  declaration  of  all  the  New  Testament 
critics,  that  the  Resurrection  of  Christ  'really  did 
happen/  or  by  the  conversion  of  any  number  of 
novelists  at  Lourdes.  FThat  value  rests  exclusively  on 
the  success  with  which  she  fulfils  in  us  the  task  which 
she  alone  dares  completely  to  undertake,  the  purifica- 
tion of  the  heart  of  man  until  he  becomes  capable  by 
union  with  God,  of  conscious  fruition  of  the  Infinite  ; 
-finem  vero  vitani  eternatnj 

'  Le  vrai  dogme  centrale  du  christianisme,  c'est 
I'union  intime  et  complete  du  divin  et  de  I'humain, 
sans  confusion  et  sans  division,'  says  the  Russian 
theologian  Solowiew.  That  this  is  no  empty  vaunt 
but  a  psychological  reality,  if  ever  there  was  one,  is  well 
known  to  students  of  Christian  history.  Benedict, 
Francis,  Ignatius,  Cecilia,  Monica,  Theresa,  and  how 
many  thousand  others,  have  undoubtedly  enjoyed  this 
experience  of  union  with  the  Supreme  Good.  Among 
some  it  is  indeed  the  fashion  to  say  that  Catholicism 
when  younger  and  more  vigorous  did  produce  saints, 
but  that  its  modern  manifestation  is  but '  the  loathsome 
exploitation  of  a  worn-out  creed.'  Such  shafts  of  igno- 
rant malice  fall  short  of  their  mark,  and  lie  harmless  like 
the  lions  in  the  legenc's  of  the  martyrs — if  a  mixed 


42  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

metaphor  be  pardoned — at  the  feet  of  saints  of  our 
own  day,  at  the  feet  of  a  Cure  d'Ars,  a  Lacordaire, 
a  Clare  Vaughan,  a  Pere  Olivaint,  a  Margaret 
O'Hallahan. 

The  claim  of  the  Church  on  the  individual  con- 
science is  not,  however,  solely  based  on  evidence, 
however  compelling,  of  sanctity  in  others.  Quod  isti  et 
istae^  cur  non  ego  ?  and  it  is  in  his  own  experience 
that  the  mystic  will  ultimately  find  his  strongest 
motives  for  faith,  for  he  will  inevitably  discover  that 
the  Great  Object  of  his  soul's  desire  grows  clearer 
and  nearer  in  exact  proportion  to  the  purity  of  his 
conscience  and  to  the  fidelity  of  his  adherence  to 
Catholic  practice.  This  process  is  of  course  psycho- 
logical, rather  than  philosophical,  and  is  therefore  quite 
compatible  with  what  schemes  of  examination  of  con- 
science call  *  thoughts  against  Faith,'  with  a  more  or 
less  constant  suggestion  of  speculative  insecurity  which, 
usually  quiescent,  may  sometimes  be  stung  into  a 
strange  fictitious  activity,  by  the  irritant  of  an  indiscreet 
apostle.  In  the  case  of  those  who  have  not  had  the 
privilege  of  early  Catholic  training,  such  a  state  of 
mind  is,  during  the  first  few  years  of  Catholic  life, 
probably  more  or  less  inevitable.  Nor  has  it  the 
slightest  psychological  value.  For  the  point  is  not, 
as  the  onlooker  might  think,  that  the  believer  is  not 


IDEALISM  AND   CATHOLICISM  43 

quite  sure,  but  just  precisely  that  he  is  quite  sure, 
and  yet  cannot  help  questioning.  It  is  the  coexis- 
tence of  certitude  and  question  on  the  same  point, 
that  causes  the  poignancy  of  his  pain.  He  questions 
in  the  abstract  what  he  perceives  to  be  true  in  the 
concrete.  This  trial,  in  its  purely  logical  form,  is  not 
confined  to  those  who  embrace  the  Catholic  Faith. 
Everyone  must  have  gone  through  it  who  has  come 
under  the  influence  of  the  idealistic  philosophy. 
The  peculiar  anguish  of  the  believer  is  caused  by  the 
fact  that  the  Object  of  Revealed  Religion  appeals  to 
love  rather  than  intellectual  curiosity.  Scepticism  as 
regards  the  independent  existence  of  chairs  and 
tables,  or  even  of  planetary  systems,  leaves  the  soul 
unruffled,  but  the  mere  shadow  of  doubt  blurring  the 
adorable  Image  of  our  Divine  Redeemer  makes  the 
heart  shiver.  And  yet — it  is  perhaps  this  under- 
current of  logically  possible  doubt  that  determines 
to  some  the  finer  edge,  the  rarer  stuff  of  their  Faith. 
For  Faith,  if  no  difficulties  at  all  could  be  raised 
against  it,  would  surely  be  a  most  'mentally  inex- 
pensive '  quality.  There  is  more  than  a  spice  of  the 
adventurer  in  the  mystic. 

The  Catholic  dogmata,  then,  are  the  seeds  of  life, 
to  be  sown  in  the  ground  of  a  willing  heart,  the 
heart   of  the   homo   bonae  voluntatis   to   whom    the 


44  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

angels'  message  was  directed.  Isolated  from  each 
other,  or  stated  theoretically  only,  they  carry  no  self- 
justification  with  them,  they  show  no  promise  of  the 
life  that  is  latent  in  them,  they  appear  to  be  but 
arbitrary  and  intolerable  bonds  for  the  spirit  of  man. 
And  thus  viewed,  viewed  that  is  in  the  perceptive 
medium  of  the  natural  man,  the  animalis  homo  of  St. 
Paul,  they  cannot  possibly  appear  otherwise.  So, 
too,  if  the  simile  be  not  considered  too  fanciful,  a 
straight  stick  plunged  into  water  necessarily  appears 
crooked  in  proportion  to  its  straightness.  Much 
futile  controversy,  much  waste  of  time  and  temper, 
would  be  saved  if  this  were  only  more  generally 
understood.  Nothing  short  of  the  saintly  mood  jus- 
tifies Catholicism,  just  as  nothing  short  of  the  golden 
ear  justifies  the  burial  of  the  grain.  Many  things 
become  clearer  if  the  claims  of  the  Church  and  Dogma 
are  regarded  in  the  light  of  this  principle  ;  and  in  par- 
ticular, the  animosity  felt  by  bodies  of  men  as  such 
to  the  Church.  I  do  not  at  all  mean  that  particular 
groups  of  thinkers,  political  or  philosophical  as  the 
case  may  be,  have  not  in  their  principles  (which  it  is 
idle  to  blame  them  for,  as  without  them  they  would 
not  be  in  corporate  existence)  subjectively  sufficient 
ground  of  objection  to  the  very  idea  of  the  Church. 
I  am  referring  to  those  many,  neither  thinkers  nor 


SOCIAL  ANTI-CATHOLICISM  45 

patriots,  but  private  persons,  each  of  whom  taken 
singly  would  be  found  to  have  rather  a  weakness,  as 
he  himself  would  say,  for  Catholicism  ;  and  indeed  the 
Church  touches  human  nature  so  tenderly,  so  gra- 
ciously, and  at  so  many  different  points,  that  it  is  not 
easy  for  any  who  come  in  contact  with  her  not  to  a 
certain  extent,  on  some  point,  to  feel  her  charm. 
Now  six  of  these  persons  together  will  be  anti- 
Catholic.  Moreover  the  motives  which  each  sincerely 
believes  to  be  actuating  him  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  motive  really  producing  their  corporate 
conviction.  The  former  rest  on  prejudice  and  igno- 
rance, and  were  these  critics  to  compare  notes  the 
mistakes  of  the  one  would  be  found  to  refute  those 
of  the  other.  Their  corporate  conviction  rests  on 
something  far  deeper,  far  less  innocent  than  prejudice 
or  ignorance.  The  instinctive  feeling  of  the  natural 
man  for  the  supernatural  things  of  God  acquires  a 
greater  momentum  and  velocity,  so  to  speak,  when  it 
voices  itself  in  a  social  bond  founded  solely  on  the 
natural  order.  In  other  words  the  motive  which 
animates  them  is  the  instinctive  hatred  of  the  natural 
society,  of  the  '  World  '  for  which  Christ  declined  to 
pray,  for  the  supernatural  society  whose  very  terms 
of  membership,  the  first  of  which  is  faith  in  Catholic 
dogma,   necessarily   appear   to   them   repulsive   and 


46  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

absurd.  Their  motive  is,  then,  the  jealousy,  or  some- 
times the  inverted  jealousy,  the  contempt,  of  the 
kingdom  of  earth  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  This 
is  why  what  is  called  the  national  spirit  is  at  a 
certain  stage  of  its  development  invariably  anti- 
Catholic,  as  much  in  Italy  as  in  England. 

This  is  so  universally  verifiable  that  the  history  of 
the  Church  in  most  European  countries  is  much  the 
same.  First  comes  a  period  of  rudimentary  civilisa- 
tion of  the  conquered  and  docile  savage,  during  which 
the  bases  of  the  Church's  power  are  laid  deep  in  the 
simple  hearts  who  love  her,  for  they  owe  everything  to 
her,  both  their  vista  of  heaven  and  their  opportunity, 
such  as  it  is,  of  a  little  decent  human  happiness  on  earth. 

Then  follows  an  intellectual,  spiritual,  and  artistic 
development,  wonderfully  expressed  in  the  French 
and  English  Cathedrals,  the  primitive  painters,  and 
the  period  of  scholastic  philosophy  closed  by  Aquinas 
and  St.  Bonaventure.  Then  the  intellectual  develop- 
ment begins  to  outstrip  the  spiritual  :  some  one 
discovers  that  a  state  of  grace  is  not  necessary  in 
order  to  work  a  printing-press.  The  intellect 
divorced  from  grace  proceeds  to  think  out  a  secular 
state,  man  borrows  for  egotistic  temporal  ends  the 
social  machinery  first  taught  him  by  the  Church  to 
fit  him  individually  for  a  heavenly  destiny. 


COMPROMISE  47 

Little  by  little  the  older  aspirations  begin  to  die 
out,  lingering  here  and  there  in  special  coteries,  men 
are  led  away  from  their  craving  for  the  eternal  by  the 
incessant  multiplication  of  the  temporal,  while  life 
itself  becomes  increasingly  difficult  in  a  community 
where  the  pursuit  of  wealth  grows  more  and  more 
universal.  New  objects  of  interest  arise  ;  art  grows 
less  human  and  less  divine  ;  morality,  depending  for 
its  motive  and  sanction  on  temporal  social  expediency, 
slips  into  the  place  of  righteousness  ;  the  individual 
has  no  time  to  think  of  his  soul  ;  gradually  the 
secularised  state  idealised  as  the  Fatherland  takes 
the  place  of  the  Church,  and  a  national  spirit  is  formed 
which  only  needs  opportunity  to  betray  its  anti- 
Catholic  principles. 

Of  course  there  are  intermediate  stages  of  com- 
promise with  the  Christian  idea,  there  are  concordats, 
and  there  are  National  Churches.  The  ^tat  atJiee 
dares  not  show  its  face  of  death  at  once. 

In  the  concordat  the  claims  of  the  Church  are 
theoretically  respected,  maintained  even,  but  they 
are  limited  in  their  exercise  by  the  temporal  needs  of 
the  community.  Parish  priests  make,  after  all,  for 
social  order,  and  are  supposed  to  mitigate  the  incen- 
tives to  crime  that  in  the  modern  state  lurk  for  the 
envious  poor.     Let  them  remain  :  they  cost  less  and 


48  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

serve  the  state  better  than  an  elaborate  police.  But 
religious  orders  drain  the  State  of  its  most  valuable 
elements  :  the  exotic  food  of  those  who  hunger  and 
thirst  after  righteousness  must  therefore  be  placed 
under  a  prohibitive  tariff. 

The  National  Church  takes  a  different  and  in 
some  ways  a  franker  line.  In  this  case  the  State 
simply  takes  the  Christian  religion  bodily  over, 
reshapes  its  doctrines,  modifies  its  moral  law,  and 
having  cast  aside  the  Keys  of  Peter  tries  to  maintain 
its  own  impossible  sanctions  by  borrowing  the  sword 
of  Paul.  But  that  two-edged  symbol  of  martyrdom 
is  too  heavy  to  be  wielded  by  any  save  by  him  whose 
legitimate  heirloom  it  is.  The  English  and  Irish 
persecutions — the  latter  of  which,  according  to  Mr. 
Lecky,  was  the  worst  of  all  religious  persecutions — are 
at  last  confessed  to  have  failed  abjectly.  In  Ireland 
the  Faith  has  finally  triumphed,  and  it  is  probably 
stronger  and  more  secure  in  England  at  the  present 
day  than  at  any  time  since  the  publication  of  the 
Bull  Dominus  in  praecelsis. 

Now  what  has  been  the  effect  of  this  non-Catholic 
development  of  man  on  his  religious  belief  >  It  surely 
must  be  admitted  that  it  has  been  almost  purely 
destructive.  Religion  has  under  its  influence  slipped 
from  her  ancient  throne  and  become  a  waiting  woman, 


INDIFFERENCE   IN   MATTERS   OF   RELIGION        49 

sometimes  docile,  sometimes   querulous  and  obtru- 
sive. 

Modern  etiquette  considers  a  man's  religious 
opinions,  be  they  what  they  may,  in  the  light  of  some 
personal  idiosyncrasy  which  it  would  be  bad  taste  to 
mention.  A  man  is  a  Romanist  or  a  Plymouth 
Brother  or  he  has  but  three  fingers  on  his  left  hand  ; 
in  all  these  cases  good  manners  dictate  a  like  discre- 
tion. *  I  know,'  says  Newman  in  a  famous  passage, 
*  that  even  the  unaided  reason,  when  correctly  exercised, 
leads  to  a  belief  in  God,  in  the  immortality  of  the 
soul,  and  in  a  future  retribution  ;  but  I  am  consider- 
ing the  faculty  of  reason  actually  and  historically  ; 
and,  in  this  point  of  view,  I  do  not  think  I  am  wrong 
in  saying  that  its  tendency  is  towards  a  simple  un- 
belief in  matters  of  religion.  No  truth  however 
sacred  can  stand  against  it  in  the  long  run  ;  and 
hence  it  is  that  in  the  pagan  world  when  our  Lord 
came,  the  last  traces  of  the  religious  knowledge  of 
former  times  were  all  but  disappearing  from  those 
portions  of  the  world  in  which  the  intellect  had  been 
active  and  had  had  a  career.  And  in  these  latter 
days,  in  like  manner,  outside  the  Catholic  Church 
things  are  tending — with  far  greater  rapidity  than  in 
that  old  time,  from  the  circumstance  of  the  age — to 

E 


50  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

atheism  in  one  shape  or  another.'  ^  Indifference  to 
truth  is  the  true  source  of  the  world's  politeness  on 
questions  of  religion.  Opinion  can  live  happily  with 
its  contradictory.  The  religious  instinct,  except  in  so 
far  as  it  has  reacted  against  these  conditions,  bids  fair 
to  die  of  atrophy.  Speculatively  unjustifiable  from  the 
point  of  view  of  modern  naturalism  it  can  only  find  its 
exercise  in  a  world  of  dreams.  For  modern  naturalism? 
as  we  have  seen,  can  find  no  place  for  the  self  or  the 
will  or  the  soul ;  it  therefore  brands  them  as  delusions. 
Over  against  this  negation  of  the  most  precious 
part  of  man's  experience  stand  the  affirmations  of  the 
Church.  They  have  never  changed  and  they  never 
will.  Proudhon  says  somewhere  that  Catholicism  is 
the  only  really  complete  affirmation.  This  is  a  fair 
admission  from  an  enemy.  A  Catholic  might  prefer 
to  say  that  the  Church  alone  affirms  the  reality  of 
the  whole  man.  Not  of  the  body  without  the  spirit 
nor  of  the  spirit  or  body  without  the  soul,  but  the 
reality  of  triune  man  created  in  the  image  of  the 
Divine  Triune.  This  brings  us  to  the  very  heart  of 
Catholic  dogma,  to  the  source  of  its  formative 
influence  on  the  soul  of  man  as  distinguished  from 
its  disciplinary  action  on  his  mind,  to  the  Mystery  of 
Creation. 

'  Apologia^  p.  243. 


c 


THE   MYSTERY  OF   CREATION  5 1 


The  impression  is  prevalent  in  England  that  what 
is  called  '  Roman  Mysticism '  rests  on  some  strained 
and  fantastic  view  of  the  obligations  of  religion  due 
to  the  fertile  imagination  of  the  Latin  races.  On  the 
contrary,  the  fundamental  element  in  the  psychology 
of  the  Catholic  mystic  is  nothing  but  recognition  to 
the  full  of  the  consequences  of  creation.l  A  modern 
spiritual  writer  who  has  often  been  accused  of 
*  Italianism '  most  truly  says  :  *  If  Christianity  were 
not  true,  the  conduct  of  a  wise  man,  who  acted  con- 
sistently as  a  creature  who  had  a  Creator,  would 
strangely  resemble  the  behaviour  of  a  Catholic  saint. 
The  lineaments  of  the  Catholic  type  would  be  dis- 
cernible on  him  though  his  gifts  would  not  be  the 
same.'  ^  The  right  appreciation  of  Catholicism 
depends  almost  entirely  on  the  due  apprehension  of 
what  is  meant  by  this  mystery.  It  is  the  funda- 
mental dogma  of  Christianity.  No  momentous 
consequences  extend  through  and  justify  every 
ramification  of  the  revealed  system,  and  its 
psychological  effect  on  those  who  really  believe  and 
apprehend  it,  is  probably  more  intense  and  searching 
than  that  of  any  other  religious  doctrine  that  has  ever 
been  believed  by  man. 

In  a  matter  depending  so  much  on  the   closest 

*  Faber,  The  Creator  and  the  Creatureyp.  i^, 

E  2 


52.  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

verbal  accuracy,  it  is  well  to  begin  by  referring  to  the 
latest  definition  of  the  Church  on  the  subject.  The 
Vatican  Council  defines,  then,  that  all  things  contained 
in  the  universe  are  produced  as  regards  the  whole  of 
their  substance  by  God  out  of  nothing. 

Si  quis  negaverit  res  omnes  quae  in  mundo  continen- 
tur  secundum  totam  suam  substantiam  a  Deo  ex  nihilo 
esse  productas,  anathema  sit} 

The  Vatican  Fathers  here  adopt  and  confirm  the 
definition  given  by  St.  Thomas  of  creation  as  the 
Productio  alicujus  rei  secundum  suam  totam  substan- 
tiam^ nullo  praesupposito?  The  first  remark  that 
occurs   on   this   is   that    creation    is    evidently   not 

*  making '  of  any  kind.  To  assert  the  *  making '  of 
anything  nullo  praesupposito  or  ex  nihilo  is  simply  to 
state  a  contradiction  in  terms.  Paley's  transcendental 
watchmaker  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  Catholic  God. 

*  Making '  necessarily  implies  the  use  of  means,  and 
no  means  are  given  in  the  aboriginal  act  of  creation. 

That  act  is  rather  one  of  absolute  origination  both 
of  means  and  effect. 

How  such  an  act  can  take  place  is  of  course 
unknown  to  us  who  form  part  of  the  universe  thus 
absolutely  originated,  moreover  not  only  unknown 
but   necessarily   unknowable.     Nor  indeed   can   we 

*  Constitutio  Dei  Filius,  can.  3,  in  c.  i.         «  ja  j^  q^  5^,  art.  3. 


ANALYSIS  OF  'CREATION'  53 

arrive  at  any  detailed  positive  conception  of  such  an 
act,  the  utmost  that  we  can  directly  attain  is  the 
knowledge  of  what  it  is  not,  and  hence  indirectly  of 
its  psychological  consequence  to  us.  We  have  seen 
that  creation  is  not  '  making.'  On  the  other  hand 
the  conception  of  '  Expiration  '  which  plays  so  great 
a  part  in  all  Eastern  cosmogonies  except  the  Jewish, 
though  not  quite  so  far  removed  from  it,  is  yet 
wholly  distinct.  This  idea  issues  in  the  identification 
of  the  universe  and  God.  Para-Brahm  necessarily 
breathes  forth  his  phenomenal  manifestation.  It  is 
perhaps  not  without  value  at  this  point  to  note  that 
no  system  except  the  Christian  (in  which  may  here 
be  included  the  allied  Judaic  and  Mahomedan 
theogonies)  has  ever  taught  the  mystery  of  creation. 
The  extreme  abstractness  of  the  idea  presents  but 
little  attraction  to  the  mythopoeic  imagination,  and 
the  insistence  of  the  Church  on  this  primordial 
dogma  is  said,  I  do  not  know  with  what  truth,  to  be 
the  principal  difficulty  in  the  way  of  the  conversion 
of  Hindus  and  Asiatics  generally.  Not  only  is  there 
no  word  in-  all  their  various  tongues  to  express  the 
notion,  but  their  hereditary  bent  seems  entirely  to 
prevent  them  entertaining  it.  Man  left  to  himself 
does  not  believe  in  creation  in  the  Christian  sense, 
though  he  may,  of  course,  use  the  term. 


54  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM     - 

When  the  supernatural  presence  and  guidance  of 
Almighty  God  were  withdrawn  from  the  Jewish  people, 
the  doctrine  of  creation  became  in  process  of  time 
obscured  in  the  highly  coloured  pantheistic  imagery 
of  the  Kabbala.^  As  to  philosophy,  it  has  invariably 
followed  the  line  of  least  rational  resistance,  and  unless 
it  has  virtually  assumed  Christian  principles  has 
issued  in  more  or  less  expirational  and  pantheistic 
conclusions,  except  in  the  case  of  those  thinkers 
(best  represented  by  the  English  and  French  Deists 
of  the  last  century)  who,  seeking  the  ultimate  expla- 
nation of  things  in  the  principles  of  mechanics,  were 
bound  to  assume  for  their  purpose  a  carpenter  or 
watchmaker  God  who  had  'made'  the  mechanical 
universe. 

The  unique  quality  and  at  the  same  time  the 
unfathomable  mystery  of  the  Christian  doctrine  lie  of 
course  in  the  meaning  of  the  words,  ex  nihilo- 
According  to  Card.  Mazella,  a  well-known  Jesuit 
author,  for  many  years  Professor  of  Dogmatic  Theo- 
logy at  the  Roman  College,  the  phrase  might  have 
three  meanings.^ 

It  might  mean  {\)  ex  nulla  causa  sufficiente.    This 


*  See. Adam  Franck,  La  Kabbah^  p.  132. 

^  Mazella,  SJ.,  De  Deo  Creanf e,  a.vt.  l  ;  De  Creationis  conceptu, 
§4. 


ANALYSIS  OF   'CREATION'  55 

meaning  he  rejects  for  the  excellent  reason  that  no 
production,  creative  or  otherwise,  can  take  place 
without  a  sufficient  cause.  The  sufficient  cause  of 
the  Creative  Act  is  the  unfettered  Will  of  God. 

A  second  meaning  suggested  is  ex  nihilo  sui. 
This  is  inevitably  to  be  predicated  not  only  of 
creation  but  of  every  production.  All  it  means  is 
that  the  whole  completed  product  considered  as  the 
terminus  effectionis  does  not  exist  in  its  integrity 
before  the  act  of  production  has  taken  place. 

In  the  third  meaning,  ex  nihilo  subjecti,  we  touch 
the  kernel  of  the  mystery.  Taken  in  this  sense  the 
phrase  is  inapplicable  to  any  act  of  production  except 
creation.  For  in  every  other  possible  case,  though 
the  product,  the  terminus  effectionis ,  does  not  actually 
exist  before  the  act  of  production  has  taken  place,  it 
does  so  potentially  in  its  pre-existing  elements,  which 
by  their  interaction  will,  at  a  given  moment,  produce 
it.  From  which  it  follows  that  nihil  subjecti  alone 
is  pure  not-being,  the  nihil  sui  mentioned  above  is 
'  not  pure  not-being,  but  not-being  with  an  aptitude 
to  being,'  a  conception  expressed  by  the  Scholastics 
in  the  term  Privatio.  This  conception  is  alien  to  the 
kind  of  production  supposed  in  creation,  for  in  the 
latter  case  there  are  of  course  no  such  pre-existing 
elements.     Were  such  in  existence,  they  would  have 


56  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

to  be  either  God  or  not-God.  If  the  former  we  should 
have  Pantheism  ;  if  the  latter  they  would  either  have 
been  created  and  the  original  difficulty  would  recur 
or  not.  If  not,  something  besides  God  exists  aborigi- 
nally and  eternally — which  is  impossible. 

I  have  implied  above  that  there  is  some  analogy 
between  the  doctrines  of  expiration  and  creation. 
Strictly  speaking  the  analogy  is  between  expiration 
and  conservation,  which  is  the  term  applied  by 
theologians  to  the  act  by  which  God  keeps  the 
creature  in  existence.  Conservation  is  the  prolongation 
(eternal  a  parte  post  in  the  case  of  the  human  being) 
of  the  original  creative  act.  In  Coventry  Patmore's 
words,  *  Creation  differs  from  subsistence  only  as  the 
first  leap  of  a  fountain  differs  from  its  continuance.' 
The  withdrawal  of  the  Divine  conservation  would 
instantly  withdraw  existence  from  the  creature.  It 
is  not  meant  that  it  would  presently  fade  and  die,  but 
that  it  would  on  the  instant  cease  to  exist.  Only 
that  act  of  God's  stands  between  it  and  the  nihil 
suhjecti,  the  pure  not-being  from  which  it  was  drawn. 
Moreover  this  conservation  is  no  external  preservation 
effected  as  by  an  influence  from  a  distance  ;  it  is  the 
consequence  of  a  real  influx  of  God  into  the  created 
life.     Fr.  Faber  has  the  following  remarkable  passage 


FR.   FABER   ON   CREATION  57 

on    this    the  uniquely   characteristic    point    of    the 
Catholic  doctrine  :— 

'  For  we  are  never  really  outside  of  God  nor  He 
outside  of  us.  He  is  more  with  us  than  we  are  with 
ourselves.  The  soul  is  less  intimately  in  the  body, 
than  He  is  both  in  our  bodies  and  our  souls.  He  as 
it  were  flows  into  us,  or  we  are  in  Him  as  the  fish  in 
the  sea.  We  use  God,  if  we  may  dare  to  say  so, 
whenever  we  make  an  act  of  our  will,  and  when  we 
proceed  to  execute  a  purpose.  He  has  not  merely 
given  us  clearness  of  head,  tenderness  of  heart,  and 
strength  of  limb,  as  gifts  which  we  may  use  inde- 
pendently of  Him  when  once  He  has  conferred  them 
upon  us.  But  He  distinctly  permits  and  actually 
concurs  with  every  exercise  of  them  in  thinking, 
loving,  or  acting.  This  influx  and  concourse  of  God 
as  theologians  style  it,  ought  to  give  us  all  our  lives 
long  the  sensation  of  being  in  an  awful  sanctuary, 
where  every  sight  and  sound  is  one  of  worship. 
It  gives  a  peculiar  and  terrific  character  to  acts  of 
sin.  It  is  hard  to  see  how  levity  even  is  not  sacrilege. 
Everything  is  penetrated  with  God,  while  His  inex- 
pressible purity  is  all  untainted,  and  His  adorable 
simplicity  unmingled  with  that  which  He  so  inti- 
mately pervades,  enlightens,  animates,  and  sustains. 


58  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

Our  commonest  actions,  our  lightest  recreations,  the 
freedoms  in  which  we  most  unbend — all  these  things 
take  place  and  are  transacted,  not  so  much  on  the 
earth  and  in  the  air,  as  in  the  bosom  of  the  omni- 
present God.'  ^ 

Briefly,  the  Christian  God  is  both  transcendent 
and  immanent. 

One  point  more.  The  act  of  creation  is  the 
realisation  in  time  of  the  eternal  idea  of  creation,  and 
results  of  course  in  its  exact  objective  facsimile. 
From  all  eternity  Almighty  God  has  had  the  idea  of 
the  musca  domestica. 

The  freedom  of  the  creative  act  cannot  be 
pressed  to  mean  more  than  that  the  Creator  was  not 
impelled  to  create  by  any  internal  necessity.  He 
created  us  of  His  free  goodness,  bomim  diffusivum  sui^ 
He  could  not  create  otherwise  than  in  accordance 
with  His  idea. 

It  is  needless  to  pursue  the  statement  of  the 
doctrine  any  further,  since  we  are  not  here  engaged 
on  pure  theology  but  only  on  the  psychological 
effect  produced  by  belief  in  it.  The  following  pro- 
positions would  seem  to  sum  up  the  mystery  in 
relation  to  and  as  apprehensible  by  us  in  its  simplest 
forms. 

'  The  Creator  and  the  Creature,  p.  65. 


CONSEQUENCES  OF  BELIEF  IN  CREATION   59 

(A)  All  that  we  are  and  all  that  we  have  is 
absolutely  originated  by  the  creative  will  of  God 
realising  in  time  His  eternal  thought  of  each  one  of  us. 

(B)  That  we  continue  to  exist  from  one  moment 
to  another  and  to  retain  the  use  of  any  of  our 
faculties  is  due  solely  to  the  conserving  influx  of 
God. 

(C)  We  might  never  have  existed,  creation  being 
a  free  act  of  God. 

(D)  The  purpose  of  God's  action  cannot  be  less 
than  adequate  to  God  Himself:  He  must  therefore 
have  created  us,  as  all  other  creatures,  ultimately  for 
His  own  glory. 

(E)  God  is  therefore  not  only  our  origin  but  also 
our  last  and  only  essential  end. 

All  these  propositions  seem  apprehensible  enough 
as  far  as  they  go.  Propositions  (A),  (B),  and  (C)  are 
no  doubt  incomprehensible,  i.e.  we  cannot  see  all 
round  them  or  even  apprehend  all  their  implications. 

Now  if  the  above  be  accepted  as  a  fair  statement 
of  the  mystery  in  a  form  relatively  apprehensible  to 
our  mind,  a  moment's  reflection  will  show  the 
tremendous  consequences  which  result  to  man  from 
belief  in  it.  Of  these  the  most  painful  to  some  minds 
is  no  doubt  the  way  in  which  the  dogma  cuts  straight 
across  the  line  of  metaphysic.     It  follows  from  the 


6o  CATHOLIC  MYSTICISM 

freedom  of  the  creative  act  that  no  d  priori  or  meta- 
physical theory  of  it  is  possible.  That  creation  is 
literally  absurd  we  may  cheerfully  concede  to  the 
metaphysician.  But  probably  not  more  than  one  or 
two  in  a  generation  have  a  real  passion  for  pure 
thought,  and  these,  if  they  did  but  know  it,  would  find 
all,  and  more  than  all,  they  seek  in  theology.  Man 
has  unfortunately  a  number  of  less  disinterested 
ambitions  on  which  the  effect  of  belief  in  creation  is 
no  less  restrictive. 

The  various  forms  of  man's  ambition  will  be 
found,  in  so  far  as  they  transcend  the  itch  for  physical 
pleasure,  to  be  but  different  manifestations  of  one 
master-craving,  the  thirst  for  dominion.  In  the 
dechristianised  modern  world  wealth  brings  dominion  ; 
wealth  is  therefore  pursued  at  any  cost-  Now  the 
idea  of  dominion  is  quite  incongruous  with  that  of  a 
creature :  it  comes  from  a  different  quarter ;  the 
utmost  that  can  be  logically  attributed  to  him  is  a 
delegated  power  implying  strict  responsibility  to  the 
Creator.  Such,  neither  more  nor  less,  was  the  theory 
of  Christian  monarchy  and  aristocracy  in  the  days 
when  such  things  existed.  Such  to-day  is  still  the 
theory  of  the  Pontifical  sovereignty  of  Rome.  Such 
delegated  power,  precisely  because  it  is  only  dele- 
gated, claims  the  authority  belonging  to  the  source 


THE  MORAL  AUTHORITY  OF   GOD  6 1 

of  its  delegation.  And  only  a  power  so  delegated 
can  logically  claim  a  moral  authority,  a  title  to  ethical 
obedience. 

There  is  no  moral  reason  why  we  should  obey 
anyone  but  God.  Civil  society,  except  in  so  far  as  it 
represents  the  authority  of  God,  has  no  ethical  claim 
on  us,  its  pseudo-authority  can  rest  ultimately  on 
nothing  but  force,  in  any  case  where  its  ruling 
conflicts  with  self-interest : 

For  man's  grim  justice  goes  its  way, 

And  will  not  swerve  aside  : 

It  slays  the  weak,  it  slays  the  strong, 

It  has  a  deadly  stride  ; 

With  iron  heel  it  slays  the  strong. 

The  monstrous  parricide. 

The  appropriate  function  of  the  creature  is,  on 
the  other  hand,  devoted  self-subordination  to  the 
Divine  Scheme  in  which  he  finds  himself  a  part. 
Whatever  we  may  think  of  the  theology  of  Parsifal^ 
it  is  a  true  insight  that  represents  the  converted 
Kundry  as  replying  to  Gurnemanz,  who  asks  her  what 
she  wants,  with  the  one  word  '  Service.'  But  who  shall 
serve  with  unclean  hands  ? 

In  the  great  church  at  Assisi  in  Giotto's  fresco 
stands  the  bride  of  St.  Francis,  the  Lady  Poverty, 
lifting  pure  pale  hands  to  Heaven.     Those  venerable 


62  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

hands  are  empty  and  bare,  save  for  the  tears  and 
kisses  of  the  sufferers  she  has  relieved.  They  are 
empty,  for  their  constant  attitude  of  prayer  precludes 
the  hoarding  of  'the  alms  on  which  she  lives. 
She  calls  nothing  and  all  things  hers,  for  she  is 
God's. 

The  evangelical  virtue  of  Poverty^  is  more  than 
material  or  exterior  denudation  :  in  its  perfection  it 
implies  the  cutting  out  of  the  fibres  of  self-love,  the 
soul  renounces  not  only  external  but  internal 
dominion  as  well,[k)r  does  not  the  darling  Ego 
belong  to  God  as  much  as  any  other  of  His  crea- 
tures ?J  And  this  brings  the  soul  by  a  natural 
transition  to  the  second  great  Catholic  virtue. 
Chastity.  God  claims  the  body,  and  He  does  not 
dwell  in  luxurious  veins.  If  there  ever  were  a  safe 
truth,  it  is  this.  lOur  flesh  must  be  kept  clean  and 
fair  as  His  templeJ  Moreover,  he  who  dishonours 
his  body  dishonours  also  that  sacred  Body  which 
hung  on  the  Cross,  and  which  is  daily  lifted  up  in 
blessing  on  the  altars  of  the  Church.  Since  God 
became  man  everything  hum.an  has  become  divine, 
and  lust  is  inhuman.  Observe  the  glitter  in  the  eye 
as  of  a  beast  of  prey  ;  note  the  grotesque  brutish 
gesture,  the  thickness  of  voice  as  of  some  chattering 
arboreal  creature.   \And  if  the  blood  must  not  riot, 


A   MISUNDERSTANDING  63 

neither  must  the  will  or  the  intellect  which  have  to 
be  restrained  bv^obedience.7  ffhe  intellect  obeys  by 
assenting  to  the  revealed  mysteries  on  faith  in  God's 
word ;  the  will  obeys  by  squaring  the  life  with  the 
doctrine.*? 

Now  the  important_goint  to  note  about  all  this 
is  that  these  tremendous  consequences  are  not  based 
on  any  exotic  pietism,  they  follow  necessarily  from 
the  simple  premiss  of  creation,  they  do  not  apply  to 
some  special  class  of  men  alone  ;  fiT  they  apply  to 
any,  they  must  apply  to  all  God's  rational  creaturefen 
The  essential  relation  of  the  Deus  Creator  et 
Remunerator  to  a  ballet  girl  is  the  same  as  to  a 
Carmelite  nun. 

This  brings  us  to  another  misunderstanding  un- 
fortunately  not    infrequent    among   imperfectly   in- 
structed   Catholics ;  it   appears   to  have   grown   up 
during  that  melancholy  post-Tridentine,  anti-Protes- 
tant  age   of  the   Church   from    which   the  Vatican 
Council  has  at  length  delivered  us.     The  misunder- 
j  standing  I  refer  to  amounts  to  this. 
I         Christianity     contains     two     systems     radically 
\  differing,  the  one  intended  for  priests  and  religious, 
the  other  for  lay  persons.     Perfection  is  in  this  view 
necessarily  and  exclusively  attached  to  the   former, 
which  is  the  supreme  and  ultimately  real  expression 


64  CATHOLIC  MYSTICISM 

of  the  religion  ;  the  laity  can  be  at  best  but  amateur 
Christians. 

There  is  a  double  fallacy  in  this  position.  The 
abstract_  is  confused  with  the  real^  And  the  (means  ) 
with  jthe  end*  The  Religious  Stated  the  state,  i.e.,  of 
those  who  live  under  vows  of  absolute  poverty,  entire 
continence,  and  complete  obedience,  is,  as  such, 
higher  than  the  secular  state  where  these  vows  are 
not.  This  is,  of  course,  beyond  dispute.  This 
superiority  is,  however,  wholly  abstract,  as  abstract  as 
the  contrasted  states,  (j  Reality  is  exhausted  by 
what  is.M  What  alone  '  really '  exists  is  a  number  of 
individuals  in  the  concrete,  some  of  whom  live  under 
vows,  and '.some  of  whom  do  not  so  live.  Relatively 
to  these  concrete  persons,  taken  one  by  one  each  in 
his  solitary  individuality,  it  is  impossible  to  predicate 
the  superiority  of  the  one  *  state '  over  the  other,  it  is 
wholly  a  matfer  of  vocation.  Luther  was  a  bad 
religious.  Sir  Thomas  More  a  lay  saint,  ^^nd  in  the 
actual  contrast  of  those  two  lives  lies  the  refutation 
of  the  second  fallacy^!  The  *  state'  of  Luther,  a 
professed  Augustinian  friar,  was  the  *  state  of  perfec- 
tion'  till  the  day,  of  his  death.  No  amount  of 
licentiousness  could  alter  that.  "^NBut  Luther,  to  put  it 
mildly,  lived  imperfectly  in  that  state^^  Uhe  *  state ' 
of  Blessed  Thomas  More,  on  the  other  hand,  was  not 


THE   'COUNSELS'  AND  THE  'PRECEPTS'       65 

J^fihnically  the  state  of  perfection  at  all.  He  was  a 
great  secular  statesman  and  a  wealthy  noble,  twice 
married  and  blest  with  a  numerous  family.  Yet  in 
that  technically  less  perfect  state  he  became  so 
unusually  perfect  a  Christian  as  at  last  to  merit  the 
crown  of  martyrdom  for  that  Faith  from  which 
Luther  died  a  miserable  apostate.  The  end  proposed 
by  their  religion  alike, to  Luther  and  to  Sir  Thomas 
More  was  perfection,  the  perfect  love  of  God  imply- 
ing detachment  from  all  else— from  wealth,  from  lust, 
from  self-love.  Luther  chose  the  more  perfect  means 
to  that  end,  inasmuch  as  he  bound  himself  by  vow  to 
live  all  his  life  under  the  conditions  of  absolute 
poverty,  entire  continence,  and  complete  obedience. 
We  know  how  he  kept  his  vow.  Our  blessed  martyr 
after  years  of  prayer  and  reflection  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  these  high  professions  were  by  God's 
appointment,  in  his  case,  mirabilia  super  se ;  accepting 
with  surely  true  Christian  humility  the  abstractly 
less  perfect  means,  he  unfalteringly  persevered  and 

^  attained  his  end. 

The  end,  then,  of  all_  Catholics  is  the  same,  the 
*  perfection '  of  the  ( religious  state)  consists  in  the 
greater_p^rfectign  ^  the_means_  to  that  end  which  it 
supplies.  "^^They  are  heroic  indeed  in  the  self-abnega- 
tion  which  they   imply,  y  Nevertheless,  without  the 


66  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

possession  of  the  jnood^  to  the  production  of  which 
they  are  so  obviously  and  skilfully  directed,  neither 
monk  nor  courtier  will  see  the  Face  of  God^^  (^nd 
1^^  5?  ;  the  essentiafingredients  of  that  mood  are  the  fruit  of 
no  eccentric  exaltation  of  spirit,  but  are,  as  we  have 
seen,  contained  in  the  logic  of  creatio^  It  is  not 
essential  to  Catholic  sanctity  that  a  man  should  be 
under  a  vow  of  poverty,  but  it  is  essential  that  he 
should  be  indifferent  to  riches  whether  he  possess 
them  or  not;  not  essential  that  his  continence  be 
completely  and  irrevocably  made  over  to  God  by  a 
vow  of  perpetual  chastity,  but  surely  essential  that  his 
physical  desire  being  contained  within  those  sacra- 
mental limits  which  transubstantiate  brute  appetite 
into  the  symbol  chosen  by  Christ  Himself  to  express 
His  relations  with  His  Churchy  the  fine  edge  of  his 
soul's  craving  be  sharp-set  on  the  beauty  of  God. 
\lt  is  not  essential  that  he  should  have  vowed  complete 
obedience  to  a  religious  superior  even  in  the  cigtails 
of  his  daily  occupation/but  it  undoubtedly  is  essential 
that  he  should  obey  the  known  will  of  God,  and  if 
necessary  take  his  place  in  '  the  bright  roll-call  of 
those  who  have  defied  Caesar  even  unto  death/^ 
\Belief  in  creation  is  not  of  course  the  only  element 
in  the  psychology  of  the  Catholic  Mystic,  but  enough 
has,  I  think,  been  said  to  show  that  it  is  the  funda- 


THE  PYSCHOLOGICAL  PROCESS  OF  DOGMA     6/ 

mental  factor  in  his  mental  composition.  yThe 
other  mysteries  of  the  Faith  take  their  place  in 
his  progressively  realised  Credo,  and  their  succes- 
sive real  apprehension  indicates  the  stages  of  his 
spiritual  development,  while  of  that  development 
the  mystery  of  creation  is  the  necessary  point  of 
departure. 

Foremost  among  these  are  the  mysteries  of  the 
Adorable  Trinity  and  of  the  Incarnation  of  the  Son 
of  God.  Then  the  wondrous  cycle^f  His  actions,  at 
once  Divine  and  human.  The  Passion,  Death,  and 
Resurrection  of  Emanuel — God-with-us — who  is  both 
our  Almighty  Creator  and  the  redeeming  Head  of 
our  race,  in  whom  all  our  antinomies  whether  of  reason 
or  will  are  finally  reconciled ;  nor  will  he  overlook 
the  Divine  and  human  maternity  of  Mary,  who  being 
the  Mother  of  Jesus  is  as  truly  our  Mother  as  He  is 
(to  quote  St.  Paul's  words)  our  Brother. 

Carissimi^nunc filii Dei sumus  :  et  nonduni  apparuit 
quid  erimus.  Schnus  quoniani  cumapparuerit^  similes 
ei  erimus^  quoniam  videbimus  eum  sicuti  est. 

One  day  the  lyre  so  cunningly  compacted  under 
the  guidance  of  the  Eternal  Spirit  of  words  and 
logic  will  be  broken  for  ever,  but  will  not  the 
Divine  Symphony  continue  ?  St.  Paul  the  Apostle 
says  that  everything  will  fail  at  the  last  but  Love, 

F2 


68  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

and  in  the  words  of  another  master  in  Christianity, 

'  Love  is  God  : 

;  Te  trina  Deltas  unaque  poscitnus^ 
I  Sic  nos  tu  visita,  sicut  te  colimus : 
'  Per  tuas  semitas  due  nos  quo  tenditnus^ 
Adlucem  quam  inhabit  as. 

Christian  Mysticism,  the  principles  of  which  are 
unmistakably  asserted  in  the  earliest  writings  of  the 
Church,  in  the  gospels  of  the  four  Evangelists,  and 
those  letters  of  the  Apostles  which  time  has  preserved, 

I  needed  for  its  development,  retreat  and  silence,)  for, 
like  the  religion  of  which  it  is  the  supreme  expression, 

r  it  is  a  life  rather  than  a  theor^Tj 

A  writer  in  the  'Annales  de  Philosophic  Chre- 
tienne '  says  with  perfect  theological  accuracy :  '  La 
mystique  chretienne  ne  consiste  pas  a  aller  a  Dieu  par 
le  cQe.\xr  pMtot  que  par  la  raison,  maisa  chercher  Dieu 
par  le  coeur  autant  que  par  la  raison.  Le  mystique 
n'est  pas,  comme  on  I'a  pense,  un  homme  qui  s'eleve  a 
des  verites  superieures  a  I'experience  ;  mais,  au  con- 
traire,  un  homme  qui  constate  par  experience  des 
verites  superieures  a  la  raison.'  It  was  Palestine, 
Syria,  Mesopotamia,  above  all  the  valley  of  the  Nile 
and  the  Thebaid,  which  in  the  middle  of  the  third 
century  furnished  an  asylum  for  the  seekers  after 
communion  with  God. 

1  Annates  de  Philosophie  Chritiemie.  Mars  1897.  '  La  Methode 
Experimentale  et  la  Mystique  Chretienne.' 


HISTORY  OF   CHRISTIAN    MYSTICISM  69 

In  the  year  253  St.  Paul,  the  first  hermit,  as  he  is 
called,  fled  before  the  persecution  of  Decius  into  the 
African  desert,  where  he  spent  ninety  years  in  solitary 
contemplation.  He  opened  a  wonderful  period  in 
Christian  history,  the  period  of  the  Fathers  of  the 
Desert.  St^  Anthony,  whose  life  has  been  recorded 
for  us  by  St.  Athanasius,  saw  the  aged  Paul  before 
he  died  and  carried  on  his  tradition,  modifying  it  by 
the  adaptation  of  its  spirit  to  the  condition  of  the 
cenobitic  or  community  life.  For  Christians  had 
rushed  forth  in  thousands  into  the  desert  to  consecrate 
their  lives  to  God  in  perfect  purity  and  abstraction  ; 
and  their  numbers  no  less  than  the  intrinsic  diffi- 
culties of  their  purpose  rendered  some  sort  of  legisla- 
tion necessary.  [This  legislation  the  Church  wisely 
left  in  the  hands  of  those  most  fitted  both  by 
experience  and  by  the  insight  of  their  intuitive  genius 
to  create  and  apply  it.  ^  Anthony,  Ammon,  Palemon, 
to  mention  but  three  names  among  the  great  captains 
of  the  monastic  warfare,  gradually  codified  the 
spiritual  experience  of  the  desert  into  a  form  which 
was  afterwards  to  be  carried  on  with  but  little  if  any 
fundamental  alteration  by  St.  Basil  in  the  East 
and  by  St.  Benedict  in  the  Western  Church.  To 
this  day  the  Rule  of  St.  Basil  governs  nearly  all 
Oriental  communities,  and  although  in  the  West  the 


70  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

fertility  of  the  Christian  genius  has  budded  into  an 
infinite  variety  of  expression,  the  Rule  and  the  habit 
of  St.  Benedict  are  always  with  us.  We  English, 
who  owe  our  Faith  to  the  sons  of  St.  Benedict,  cannot 
but  hope  and  pray  that  it  may  always  be  so. 

It  is  a  very  hard  thing  for  us  who  live  in  the 
modern  world  with  its  multiplicity  of  interest  to 
realise  the  intensity  of  the  interior  life  of  our  Christian 
forbears.  For  prayer,  if  not  the  sole,  was  undoubtedly 
the  main  occupation  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Desert. 
That  inner  world  of  the  soul  into  which  they  retired 
did  not  consist  in  an  otiose  vacuity  of  mind,  as  we  are 
too  apt,  j udging  from  our  own  poverty  of  spirit,  to  think. 
For  one  thing,  to  those  early  generations,  the  story  of  the 
Christ  was  in  nojyay^ dimmed  by  time,  but  was  a  piece 
of  vivid  and  quite  recent  history/  Mr.  Pater  has  noted 
this  with  wonderful  delicacy  of  touch  in  his  account  of 
the  early  Christian  Mass  in  '  Marius  the  Epicurean ' : 

'  What  Saint  Lewis  of  France  discerned  and  found 
so  irresistibly  touching,  across  the  dimness  of  many 
centuries,  as  a  painful  thing  done  for  love  of  him  by 
one  he  had  never  seen,  was  to  them  almost  as  a  thing 
of  yesterday  ;  and  their  hearts  were  whole  with  it.  It 
had  the  force  among  their  interests,  of  an  almost 
recent  event  in  the  career  of  one  whom  their  fathers' 
fathers  might  have  known.' 


THE  CHURCH   THE   HOME  OF   THE  MYSTIC      7 1 

This  no  doubt  was  much  to  them  ;  and  then  there 
was  also  that  craving  for  the  Divine  Companionship, 
that  longing  to  walk  with  God  as  a  friend  with  a 
friend,  that,  never  wholly  absent  from  our  race,  seems 
on  occasion  to  fire  whole  multitudes  as  individuals, 
and  perceptibly  raises  masses  of  men  a  stage  nearer 
some  rarefied,  quintessential  life,  of  which  its  partial 
and  intermittent  success  is  at  once  the  earnest  and 
the  portent. 

There  have  been  mystics  in  all  religions,  but  it  is 
the  glory  and,  to  the  philosophic  mind,  a  very  cogent 
*  note '  of  the  Church,  that  Catholicism  has  in  all 
times  been  able  to  deal,  as  an  equal,  with  these 
mysterious  developments  of  human  nature. 

In  other  systems,  putting  aside  philosophical 
schools  for  the  moment,  the  mystic  sooner  or  later 
becomes  the  heretic  ;  but  in  the  Church  he  finds  his 
natural  home,  her  liturgy  alternately  soothes  and 
stimulates  him,  her  discipline  braces  his  will  to  that 
ascesis  without  which  mysticism  degenerates  surely 
into  the  abnormal  and  the  insane,  her  dogma 
provides  him  with  ballast  and  direction  for  his 
lightest,  his  most  ethereal  flights. 

And  so  it  was  that  while  the  age  of  the  Fathers  of 
the  Desert  passed,  mysticism  did  not  pass  away  from 
the  Church. 


72  CATHOLIC  MYSTICISM 

While  the  anchorites  were  conquering  the  desert 
tracts  of  the  soul  for  the  interior  life  of  those  rare 
and  chosen  individuals  who  through  the  coming  ages 
of  Christendom  were  to  follow  in  their  steps, 
Christians  who  remained  in  the  world  were  laying  the 
foundations  of  the  Church's  social  power.  The 
expiring  forces  of  the  great  pagan  civilisation 
converged  in  two  final  attempts  to  destroy  the  new 
religion.  These  were  the  Decian  persecution  and 
the  Neo-Platonist  philosophy.  Towards  the  close  of 
the  third  century,  this,  the  most  terrible  of  the  ten 
great  persecutions  of  the  Church,  broke  forth. 
Neither  age  nor  sex  could  protect  the  disciples  of 
Christ,  and  the  ingenuity  of  experts  in  cruelty  was 
taxed  to  discover  fresh  means  of  torture.  Christians 
were  broken  on  the  wheel,  their  bodies  burnt  with 
torches,  their  eyes  pierced  with  pointed  reeds  :  and  it 
was  after  these  preparations  that  they  were  thrown 
to  the  beasts,  flayed  alive,  or  slowly  burnt  to  death 
on  red-hot  iron  chairs.  The  extent  to  which  the 
persecution  spread  was  unprecedented.  In  Phrygia 
a  whole  city  was  burnt  to  the  ground  with  all  its 
Christian  inhabitants. 

The  martyrs  no  less  than  the  anchorites  were 
specially  assisted  by  God  in  their  heroic  struggles. 
We  read  in  the  letter  of  the  Church  of  Smyrna  on 


THE  MYSTICISM  OF  THE  MARTYRS  73 

the  martyrdom  of  St.  Polycarp  these  words  :  *  To  a 
great  number  of  the  martyrs  the  whips,  the  torture, 
and  the  flames  seemed  sweet  and  agreeable.  They 
did  not  heave  a  single  sigh  while  the  blood  streamed 
from  all  their  limbs,  while  their  torn  and  open  bodies 
exposed  their  entrails,  and  while  the  people  them- 
selves could  not  but  weep  at  such  a  spectacle.  For 
the  Lord,  the  Protector  of  souls,  spoke  with  them, 
soothed  their  suffering,  and  put  before  their  eyes  the 
heavenly  crown  which  should  reward  their  patience.' 
.  The  martyr  Flavian  asked  St.  Cyprian  if  the  death- 
blow was  very  painful,  and  the  saint  replied,  *  The 
body  feels  nothing  when  the  soul  is  given  to 
God/ 

While  the  new  doctrine  was  thus  triumphing  in  its 
martyrs,  the  more  enlightened  pagans,  disapproving 
such  useless  violence,  were  preparing  a  philosophical 
opposition  to  the  Church.  This  opposition  took  the 
form  of  a  dogmatic  syncretism,  which  was  to  bind 
together  in  a  unity  capable  of  being  opposed  to  the 
unity  of  the  Catholic  faith  the  various  myths  and 
traditions  of  paganism.  These  myths  were  to  be 
understood  in  a  philosophic  and  non-natural  sense, 
and  it  was  therefore  necessary  to  find  in  antiquity  a 
philosophical  principle  which  should  serve  as  a 
unifying  basis.     This  principle   was   sought   in   the 


74  CATHOLIC  MYSTICISM 

writings  of  Pythagoras  and  Plato.  Renan  observes 
somewhere  that  the  only  people  who  do  any  real 
harm  to  the  Church  are  apostates,  and  Ammonius 
Saccas,  the  founder  of  Neo-Platonism,  had  been  a 
Christian.  His  disciple  Plotinus,  however,  had  more 
to  do  with  the  intellectual  formation  of  the  school 
Circumstances  alone  made  him  anti-Christian,  and  he 
may  more  fitly  be  considered  as  an  independent 
thinker,  the  last  indeed  of  the  purely  Greek 
philosophers.  He  practised  an  austere  asceticism, 
observed  celibacy,  and  spent  much  of  his  time  in 
prayer  and  fasting.  These  religious  practices,  more 
or  less  successfully  imitated  by  his  disciples,  soon 
developed  a  true  mysticism  among  the  Neo-Platonists. 
Porphyry,  who  wrote  his  Life,  tells  us  that  he  had 
seen  Plotinus  four  times  united  to  God  in  ecstasy. 
Very  remarkable,  too,  were  the  last  words  of  the 
dying  philosopher :  '  I  am  trying,'  he  said,  *  to 
re-unite  the  God  who  is  within  me  to  the  Divinity 
in  the  universe.' 

The  Christian  apologists  endeavoured  to  meet 
this  attack  in  two  ways.  Some  devoted  themselves 
to  showing  the  flimsiness  of  the  grounds  on  which 
the  hypothesis  of  the  Platonisers  rested,  while  others, 
leaving  on  one  side  the  errors  of  the  school, 
endeavoured   rather   to   bring   out   the   elements  of 


NEO-PLATONISM  75 

truth  contained  in  the  Platonic  traditions.  Their 
burden  was,  that  Christianity  in  its  admirable  sim- 
plicity contained  all  that  was  true  in  opposing 
systems,  and  that  the  syncretism  which  was  being 
sought  for,  could  only  be  solidly  founded  on  the 
teaching  of  the  Church.  Among  the  latter  were 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  Origen,  and  Synesius.  But  a 
really  synthetic  thinker  was  needed,  who  should  be 
able  to  unite  in  an  organic  unity  the  elements  of 
truth  dispersed  throughout  pagan  philosophy,  and 
thus  edify  a  monument  which  could  be  successfully 
opposed  to  the  new  Pantheon  of  the  Platonists. 
This  man  appeared  at  the  beginning  of  the  fifth 
century.  His  work  was  mystical,  for  his  object  was 
to  sound  the  depths  of  the  Christian  mysteries.  He 
found  his  basis  in  the  writings  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments,  interpreted  by  the  Christian  tradition,  and 
among  the  inspired  writers  he  naturally  had  a  special 
preference  for  St.  Paul  the  Apostle,  who  had  been  the 
first  to  discover  the  speculative  depths  of  Christian 
dogma.  St.  Paul  was  accordingly  hailed  as  the  first 
initiatorinto  the  Divine  illumination,  and  the  Christian 
world  came  to  think  that  it  recognised  in  Denys  the 
Areopagite,  whom  Paul  had  converted,  and  conse- 
crated first  bishop  of  Athens,  the  anonymous  writer 
who   gave    to    Christian    mysticism    its    form    and 


j6  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

development.  Such  was  the  origin  of  the  books  that 
have  come  down  to  us  under  the  name  of  the 
Areopagite. 

The  writings  of  the  pseudo-Areopagite  can  be 
divided  into  three  parts,  of  which  the  first  treats  of 
God,  considered  in  His  essental  immobility,  while  the 
second  contemplates  Him  pouring  Himself  by  His 
Providence  through  His  creatures,  and  the  third  is 
concerned  with  creatures  returning  to  God,  their  first 
cause  and  last  end.  In  the  first  division  may  be 
classed  the  De  noininibus  Divinis  :  God,  who,  con- 
sidered in  the  simplicity  of  His  essence,  can  be 
called  by  no  name,  yet  assumes  all  names,  being  the 
first  cause  of  everything.  Himself  the  essential 
goodness,  He  is  the  principle,  the  Beginning  and  the 
End  of  everything  which  exists  ;  and  He  Himself  is 
without  beginning  or  end.  He  is  the  Life  which  gives 
life  to  everything,  and  yet  He  Himself  is  above  all 
life.  Considered  as  wisdom  He  is  the  source  of  all 
science  ;  He  is  the  simple  and  essential  truth  which 
men  seek  in  everything,  and  which  no  creature  can 
ever  know.  Considered  as  power  and  energy  He  is 
the  Cause  of  all  virtue.  He  is  One,  and  he  is  All ; 
He  is  the  Principle  of  all  unity,  and  all  multiplicity ; 
and  that  is  why  he  can  be  called  by  all  the  names 
which  are  not  repugnant  to  His  Essence  on  condition 


THE  PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS  77 

however,  of  its  being  recognised  that  in  Himself  He 
has  no  name  at  all. 

The  Theologia  Mystica^  on  the  other  hand,  con- 
siders creatures  in  their  return  towards  God.  The 
human  soul,  by  an  inverse  movement  to  that  of  God 
towards  the  creature,  rising  step  by  step  through  the 
degrees  of  creation,  remounts  at  last  to  God,  enters 
the  mysterious  night  of  the  Divinity,  which  no  created 
light  can  pierce,  and  there  unites  herself  intimately 
with  her  last  end.  These  works,  which  succeeded  in 
demonstrating  that  all  the  truth  which  the  Platonist 
school  had  discovered  in  humanity  was  found  in 
Christianity  in  a  far  purer  and  more  perfect  form, 
gave  to  mystical  speculation  a  solid  basis  on  which 
the  following  centuries  did  but  continue  the  edifice 
already  begun. 

While  the  theory  of  Christian  mysticism  was 
being  vindicated  against  the  Alexandrian  sophists, 
St.  Benedict  in  Italy  was  giving  a  new  impulsion  to 
its  practice.  In  the  year  498  he  had  fled  as  a 
young  man  of  eighteen  the  temptations  of  Rome,  and 
plunged  into  the  solitude  of  Subiaco.  Here,  in  pro- 
cess of  time  companions  joined  him,  to  whom  he 
gave  his  famous  Rule,  which,  after  the  inspired  writings, 
is  perhaps  the  most  remarkable  document  produced 
by  Christianity.     Resuming  as  it  did  the  pith  of  the 


78  CATHOLIC  MYSTICISM 

Spiritual  experience  of  his  monastic  predecessors,  the 
Rule  of  St.  Benedict  became,  in  less  than  a  century 
after  the  saint's  death,  the  almost  universal  code  of 
monastic  life  in  the  West.  Not  only  did  it  form 
contemplatives  like  St.  Bernard  and  St.  Hildegarde, 
it  trained  students  like  our  own  Venerable  Bede,  and 
missionaries  like  St.  Augustine  and  St.  Boniface. 

The  Benedictine  Order,  unlike  those    numerous 
religious  institutes  which  are  the  glory  of  the  modern 
Church,  did  not  put  before  itself  any  particular  work 
of  Christian  charity  as  its  special  aim.     The  Bene- 
dictine  monk,    once    formed    to   personal   holiness, 
undertook  every  duty  that  might  present  itself ;  so, 
according  to  circumstances,  he  was  an  evangelist,  a 
schoolmaster,    an    agriculturist,    but    always    in    his 
interior  life  a  mystic.     Not  vainly  in  later  days  did 
the  Benedictines  take  *  Pax '  for  their  motto.     A  sense 
of  peace  and  quiet  is  stamped  upon  all  Benedictine 
achievement,   whether   we  consider   the   writings  of 
their  doctors  and  theologians,  or  the  stately  abbeys 
and  churches  raised  by  their  patient  industry  all  over 
Europe,  the  noble  ruins  of  which  are  still  dotted  over 
England,   a   pathetic   heritage   from   happier    days. 
While,  as  has  been  observed,  the  Benedictine  spirit 
in   no   way   confined    itself    to    contemplation,   the 
Benedictines  gradually  withdrew  into  their  cloisters 


THE  BENEDICTINE   MOOD  79 

as  Christendom  became  organised.  Little  by  little 
the  parish  priests,  at  first  recruited  from  their  ranks, 
began  to  be  chosen  almost  entirely  from  the  secular 
clergy,  and  by  the  end  of  the  eleventh  century,  we 
find  the  Benedictines  largely,  if  not  exclusively, 
devoted  'to  purely  intra-claustral  duties — to  study, 
teaching,  and  the  solemn  celebration  of  the  Divine 
Office. 

Education,  which  had  always  been  in  some  sense 
or  other  inseparable  from  missionary  enterprise,  had 
remained  exclusively  in  their  hands,  and  a  lay  as 
well  as  a  clerical  school  was  found  in  every  abbey. 
While  the  individual  monk  Vas  strictly  bound  to 
poverty,  the  community  often  became  very  rich 
through  the  gifts  of  charitable  benefactors. 

Some  abbeys,  again,  enjoyed  large  possessions 
under  royal  charters,  and  their  abbots  exercised  over 
their  numerous  dependents  the  feudal  jurisdiction  of 
secular  nobles.  It  is  easy  to  see  how  here  and  there 
in  such  circumstances  the  pristine  simplicity  of  the 
monastic  institute  might  suffer.  An  abbot  might  law- 
fully do  for  his  community  in  the  matter  of  acquiring 
and  retaining  property  what  as  a  poor  monk  he  could 
not  do  for  himself,  and  it  might  well  be  that  in  such 
delicate  circumstances  the  limits  of  Christian  duty 
should  sometimes  be  overpassed. 


80  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

Be  this  as  it  may,  recent  historical  research  has 
proved  to  be  malicious  fable  on  this  subject  much 
which  our  less  critical  grandfathers  accepted  as  sober 
fact. 

This  is  at  all  events  true  of  English  Benedictinism, 
and  we  may  plausibly  argue  from  England  to  other 
countries  in  which  the  Benedictines  obtained  political 
and  social  power.     But — 

The  old  order  changeth,  giving  place  to  new, 
Lest  one  good  custom  should  corrupt  the  world. 

At  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century  Italy  was  ripe 
for  a  new  religious  manifestation.  Joachim  of  Flora 
had  died  in  the  first  years  of  the  century,  and  had 
left  behind  him  a  heritage  of  terror.  Italy  was 
waiting  for  the  catastrophe  of  antichrist  which  had 
been  prophesied  by  the  Cistercian  seer,  when  a 
marvellous  religious  renaissance  touched  with  a  beauty 
that  can  never  die  the  moors  and  valleys  of 
Umbria. 

It  is  not  for  the  present  writer  to  attempt  a  new 
portrait  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi.  Among  ourselves, 
the  original  biographers  of  the  Saint,  the  witnesses 
of  his  simple,  godlike  life,  cannot  be  bettered  ;  and  as 
to  others,  modern  students  not  of  our  fold,  he  would 
be  bold  indeed  who  should  attempt  to  improve  upon 
the    work    of    Renan,    Hase,   and    Sabatier.     The 


MANICH^ISM   AND   'ASCETICISM'  8 1 

conflict  between  the  flesh  and  the  spirit  was  according 
to  Joachim  the  characteristic  of  the  second  stage  of 
humanity,  the  Kingdom  of  the  Son.  The  '  Flesh,' 
embodied  in  nature  in  the  waxing  and  waning  of  the 
seasons,  in  physical  forces,  in  the  spectacle  of  the 
whole  beautiful  universe  of  matter,  entered  at  first 
into  the  Christian  consciousness  as  the  *  Enemy.' 
/This  blind  genetic  energy  of  life,  expressing  itself  not 
in_reason  but  in  instinct,  seemed  to  have  for  its 
tendency  the  assimilation  of  man  to  the  brute  ;  and 
then,  too,  there  was  a  traitor  within  the  gates,  man's 
feeble  body,  which  though  laved  in  the  waters  of  re- 
generation and  anointed  with  the  mystic  oils  of  the 
Church,  would  ache  at  times  for  the  simple  pleasures  of 
instinct,  on  which,  as  such,  the  seal  of  reprobation  had 
been  for  ever  stamped  in  the  wounds  of  Christ! 
Small  wonder  that  Manichaeism  should  have  been  a 
snare  to  many  in  the  early  ages  ;  and,  Manichaeans 
apart,  we  read  of  St  Bernard  riding  a  whole  day  along 
the  shores  of  Lake  Leman  with  downcast  eyes,  lest  the 
created  beauty  of  the  scene  should  tempt  his  soul 
from  interior  contemplation.  And  in  earlier  times 
St.  Augustine,  in  a  well-known  passage  of  his 
*  Confessions,'  curses  *  the  light,  that  queen  of  colours,' 
for  distracting  him  from  prayer. 

The   third   and   final   stage    of    man's    religious 

G 


82  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

progress  was,  according  to  Joachim,  to  know  no  such 
harassing  division  of  his  nature ;  liis  created  spirit 
and  flesh  were  to  find  the  rest  of  perfect  equihbrium 
in  the  outpouring  of  the  Divine  Spirit ;  nature  itself, 
the  old  enemy,  was  to  become  a  means  of  grace. 

What  a  marvellous  fulfilment  of  this  eternal  hope 
of  humanity  was  St.  Francis  !  Truly  he  might  have 
said  with  the  modern  poet : 

Let  us  cry,  all  good  things 
.^Are  ours,  nor  soul  helps  flesh  niore  nowyOian  flesh  helps  soul.^ 

/He  seems  to  have  been  little  troubled  with  a 
*  sense  of  sin  '  in  the  abstract — considered,  that  is,  as 
an  offence  against  law.^  (^o  him  it  was  personal  loyp  UX< 
rather  than  abstract  law  that  had  been  outragedf) 
And  so  penance  was  no  hero's  task  of  balancing  the 
scales  of  infinite  justice  p^ it  was  the  spontaneous 
abandonment  of  the  soul  face  to  face  at  last  with  her 
true  Lover.  *  Quis  non  amantem  redamet  ?  '  sings  the 
Church  on  the  Feast  of  the  Sacred  Heart.  These 
words  are  the  whole  of  Francis'  religion.  He  troubled 
himself  with  no  schemes  of  transcendental  criminal 
law ;  he  loved,  and  in  the  immensity  of  his  awakened 
passion  he  embraced  every  creature  that  the  good 
God  in  His  love  had  made,  none  were  too  humble  for 
him.      Nature  and   Grace   seemed   indeed   to   have 

*  R.  Browning,  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra, 


A   CHRISTIAN    HEDONIST  83 

kissed  each  other,  as  the  Saint,  followed  by  his  shy 
woodland  friends,  walked  to  and  fro,  bearing  the 
wounds  of  Christ ;  and  men  might  be  excused  if  they 
thought  for  a  moment  that  the  heavens  indeed  had 
opened,  and  that  the  reign  of  the  Holy  Ghost  had 
begun  on  the  Umbrian  Highlands.  It  is  hardly 
possible  perhaps  to  exaggerate  the  effect  produced 
by  St.  Francis  upon  his  contemporaries.  It  was  as 
if  the  Lord  had  taken  pity  upon  His  widowed 
Church,  and  had  once  more  left  His  Heavenly  Home 
on  a  new  mission  of  Consolation  and  Redemption. 
Christ  walked  again  visibly  among  men  in  the  person 
of  His  servant.  In  that  distant  age  the  Pelagian 
virtues  of  modern  times,  as  Father  Dalgairns  finely 
calls  them,  were  unknown ;  men  served  Christ  or 
Satan  with  a  devotion  to  either  Lord  ferocious  in  its 
intensity.  In  Sabatier's  words  they  possessed  every 
virtue  but  measure,  every  vice  but  vulgarity.  In 
such  times,  to  such  men  the  words  of  an  absolutely 
pure  and  consistent  idealist  were  wholly  convincing. 
The  emotional  possibilities  of  the  illimitable  sanctity 
to  which  such  a  prophet  urged  his  hearers,  were 
readily  understood  by  men  familiar  with  those  of 
unlimited  vice;  as  in  the  Gospel  allegory,  the  *  first 
and  the  last'  became  interchangeable  terms.  And 
perhaps  there  never  was  so  pure  and  consistent  an 


84  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

idealist  as  St.  Francis.  His  nights  were  spent  in 
prayer,  but  his  life  was  the  life  of  a  man  of  action. 
Everything  to  him  was  good,  both  society  and 
nature.  His  soul  went  out  with  a  burst  of  tenderness 
and  a  word  of  blessing  to  everything  that  lives,  even 
to  the  lowliest  animals.  The  characteristic  of  his 
temperament  was  an  inalterable  gaiety,  and  we 
should  rather  imagine  him  as  his  first  disciples 
described  him,  with  his  bright  dark  eyes,  his  open  and 
smiling  countenance,  his  gay  and  easy  carriage,  than 
with  the  emaciated  face  and  the  lugubrious  aspect 
which  characterise  him  in  the  tradition  of  the  Spanish 
painters. 

He  was  born  in  1 1 82,  and  belonged  to  the  privi- 
leged class  of  the  burgesses  of  Assisi,  then  very 
flourishing  through  its  commercial  relations  with  the 
neighbouring  cities.  His  father,  Bernardone,  was  a 
cloth  merchant  of  great  wealth,  and  the  young 
Francis  spent  his  father's  florins  with  generous 
hand.  He  would  serenade  the  Umbrian  moon 
through  the  streets  of  Assisi,  at  the  head  of  a  troop 
of  festive  companions.  It  was  the  moment  when  the 
Provengal  civilisation  was  beginning  to  penetrate 
by  means  of  errant  troubadours  the  northern  towns 
of  Italy.     Francis  appears  to  have  fed  his  mind  on 


THE   ENTHUSIASM   OF   FRANCIS  85  .    , 

V''  t 

the  fables  and  romances  of  French  chivalry,  and  is      vv^ 

c 
said  to  have  told  his  friends  about  this  time  that  he        ^ 

would  one  day  be  a  great  baron. 

But  the  optimism  of  pleasure  was  in  time  to  give 

place  to  the  idealism  of  love — of  love  awakened  by 

pity.     Francis  became  gradually  aware  of  the  core  of 

suffering  in  this  brilliant,  beautiful  world.    The  narrow 

egotism  of  his  fellow-citizens  ;  the  human  misery  that 

he   met   at   every  turn  of  the   street ;   the  starving 

beggars   who   crowded   the   doors   of  the    churches 

while   the   altars  of  Christ  within  shone  with  gold 

and   silver ;   the   hideous   lepers   who   moaned    and 

wandered,   uncared  for,   in   wild  places  outside   the  I 

city    gate — such    impressions    as    these   under    the 

smiling    Italian   sky,  in  the  midst  of  the   vine-clad 

plain  of  Umbria  where  life,  liberty,  and  joy  seemed 

the  natural  gift   of  Heaven  to  earth,  presented  his  j 

fellow-man   to   Francis  as  a  miserable,   disinherited  1 

wretch,  the  one  jarring  note  in  the  universal  harmony. 

Under  the  influence  of  these  new  preoccupations  his 

nights  began  to  JDe  given  more  and  more  exclusively 

to  prayer,  and  it  was  in  that  nocturnal  wrestling  with 

the  Angel  of  the  Lord,  that  the  sinew  of  his  thigh 

shrank  under  the  Divine  touch.     A  higher  and  more 

alluring    ideal    than    that  of    the    Provencal    poets 


86  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

dawned  on  his  imagination,  Christ  appeared  to  him 
the  true  captain  of  romance  : 

Why  all  the  souls  that  were,  were  forfeit  once  ; 
And  l^e  that  might  the  vantage  best  have  took 
Found  out  the  remedy. 

XThe  supreme  abnegation,  the  all-embracing  love 
of  the  Cross  fired  his  heart  and  brain  to  apply  that 
remedy  which  Christ  had  found.  Francis  put  off  his 
bravery,  and  devoted  himself  to  tending  the  lepers' 
sores.  The  Franciscan  movement  was  begun.  Of 
the  growth  of  that  movement,  of  the  foundation  of 
the  two  regular  orders  of  friars  and  nuns,  it  is  not  my 
intention  here  to  speak.  Thousands  left  the  world  to 
follow  Francis,  to  preach  his  gospel  of  love  and  pity. 
But  there  were  many  others  who,  although  prevented 
by  circumstances  from  abandoning  their  ordinary 
duties,  were  no  less  fired  by  the  Franciscan  spirit. 
Such  persons  remaining  in  the  world,  formed  a  vast 
society  known  as  the  Third  Order,  and  it  is  to  this 
Third  Order  that  some  of  the  most  illustrious 
Franciscans  have  belonged.  St.  Lewis  of  France, 
St.  Elizabeth  of  Hungary,  St.  Charles  Borromeo,  are 
among  its  illustrations.  It  flourishes  in  our  midst 
to-day.  Years  after  the  death  of  St.  Francis, 
Tertiaries  began  to  gather  into  communities  which 
only  differed   by  the   nature   of  their   engagements 


IVERSITY 

OF 


ANGELA  OF   FOLIGNO  Sy 

from  the  regular  communities  of  friars  and  nuns.  In 
early  days,  also,  many  persons  retired  independently 
of  any  canonical  organisation  into  solitude,  and  there 
lived  in  the  practice  of  the  Franciscan  Rule  as  hermits 
of  the  Third  Order.  Again,  two  or  three  might  live 
together  doing  works  of  penance.  Of  this  latter 
class  of  Tertiary  hermits  was  Blessed  Angela  of 
Foligno.  The  story  of  her  conversion  is  remarkable, 
and  singularly  consoling.  A  married  woman,  she 
had  lived  for  years  an  irregular  life,  and  being 
touched  by  grace,  she  suddenly  made  up  her  mind  to 
go  to  confession.  But  when  she  came  to  the  point 
her  courage  failed  her,  and  she  felt  unable  to  mention 
the  more  grievous  of  her  sins.  She  then  communi- 
cated, thus  adding  sacrilege  to  her  other  faults.  In 
this  state  she  seems  to  have  passed  some  time 
tortured  by  remorse,  and  at  length  invoked  the 
assistance  of  St.  Francis,  and  the  next  night  the  saint 
appeared  to  her.  '  My  sister,'  said  he,  *  if  you  had 
called  on  me  sooner  I  should  have  granted  your 
prayer  before  this.'  On  going  the  next  morning  to 
Mass  she  heard  a  stranger  preaching,  and  understood 
by  an  interior  light  that  he  was  the  confessor  that 
Providence  had  destined  for  her,  and  after  Mass  she 
made  to  him  a  full  confession  of  her  sins.  Then 
commenced    the   trials  of  purification.     The   reader 


88  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

will  find  them  wonderfully  detailed  in  the  naive 
language  of  the  saint  herself  in  the  '  Eighteen  Spiritual 
Steps.'  The  slowness  and  difficulty  with  which  she 
advanced  towards  God  (she  tells  us  herself  that  she 
spent  many  years  in  these  painful  stages  of  purifica- 
tion), provide  a  singular  commentary  on  those  works 
of  modern  spirituality  which  appear  to  teach,  or  at 
least  to  imply,  that  to  acquire  perfection  is  the  work 
of  a  few  days.  Such  was  not  Angela's  experience. 
She  was  a  simple  Franciscan  soul,  with  no  theories, 
but  with  an  astonishing  faculty  for  self-observation, 
and  yet  no  one  was  ever  less  morbid.  In  those  of 
her  writings  which  I  have  collected  here,  her  soul 
may  be  studied  in  each  of  its  stages,  from  the  state 
of  sin  up  to  that  of  the  astonishing  sanctity  which 
she  attained.  The  value  of  this  piece  of  Christian 
psychology  is,  I  venture  to  think,  enhanced  by  the 
fact  that  Angela  does  not  appear  by  any  means  to 
have  been  a  remarkable  person  in  the  natural  order. 
She  appears  to  have  been  a  commonplace,  frivolous, 
sinful  young  woman,  and  with  the  hesitation  of 
character  inherent  to  weak  natures,  even  when 
touched  by  grace,  was  incapable  at  first  of  a  sincere 
conversion.  That  in  spite  of  all  this  she  should  have 
attained  eventually  to  such  consummate  holiness  is 
certainly  matter  of  great  consolation.     Of  the  facts 


ANGELA  OF  FOLIGNO  89 

of  her  life  apart  from  those  narrated  in  the  following 
pages  by  herself  and  her  confessor  Arnold,  we  know 
nothing.  History  has  not  even  preserved  the  date  of 
her  birth.  The  following  translations  have  been 
made  from  the  Latin  edition  of  her  works  dedicated 
to  Cardinal  Francesco  Maria  Casino,  and  published 
at  Foligno  in  17 14.  The  text  has,  however,  been 
carefully  compared  with  that  given  by  the  Bollandists. 
Her  Office  is  celebrated  in  the  Franciscan  family  on 
March  30. 


90  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 


PART    I 

OF  THE    CONVERSION  OF  BLESSED 
ANGELA 

A  SINGLE  CHAPTER   RELATING   HER   EIGHTEEN   SPIRITUAL 
STEPS 

In  my  progress  towards  the  road  of  penance^  says 
Angela  of  Foligno,  /  travelled  by  eighteen  spiritual 
steps^  before  I  knew  the  imperfection  of  my  life. 

THE    FIRST   STEP 

THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   SIN 

Beginning  at  first  to  reflect  on  my  sins,  I  attained 
to  the  knowledge  of  them  :  and  at  this  knowledge 
my  soul  feared  greatly,  lest  she  should  be  damned  in 
Hell,  which  caused  me  to  weep  bitterly. 

THE   SECOND   STEP 

THE   SHAME  OF  CONFESSION 

In  the  second  place  I  began  to  blush  for  my  sins 
and   so   great  was   my  confusion  that   for   shame  I 


CONVERSION   OF   BLESSED   ANGELA  91 

could   not   confess   them.     Wherefore   many   times, 
being  unconfessed,  I  went  to  Communion,  and  in  my 
sins  received  the  Body  of  the  Lord.     Day  and  night, 
on  this  account,  was  I  reproved  by  my  conscience, 
by  reason  of  which  I  implored  the  Blessed  Francis  to 
grant  me  the  grace  of  finding  a  suitable  confessor, 
who  would  truly  understand  my  sins,  and  to  whom  I 
could  rightly  confess  them.     So,  that  very  night,  an 
old    man    appeared  to  me  and  said  :   *  Sister,  hadst 
thou  asked    me   sooner    I  should   the   sooner   have 
heard  thy  prayer ;  as  it  is,  what  thou  hast  asked  is 
done.'     In  the  morning,  therefore,  while  I  was  on  my 
way  to  the  Church  of  St.  Francis,  I  found,  preaching 
in  the  Church  of  St.  Felician,  a  friar  who  was  a  true 
Chaplain  of  Christ,  filled  with  His  power,  and  as  soon 
as  the  sermon  was  over,   I   made  up  my  mind  to 
confess  to  him.     I  made  a  complete   confession    of 
my  sins  and  received  absolution.     In  this  confession, 
however,  I  felt  no  love,  only  bitterness,  shame,  and 
grief 

THE   THIRD   STEP 

SATISFACTION 

In  the  third  and  next  place,  I  persevered  in  the 
performance  of  the  satisfaction  and  penance  imposed 


92  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

on    me,   and  yet   still    remained    full   of  grief   and 
without  any  consolation. 

THE   FOURTH    STEP 

THE  CONSIDERATION  OF  THE  MERCY  OF  GOD 

In  the  fourth  place,  I  began  to  contemplate  and 
learn  the  mercy  of  God,  which  had  extended  to  me 
the  aforesaid  grace,  and  had  drawn  me  out  of  Hell. 
By  this  contemplation  I  began  to  be  enlightened, 
and  now  wept  and  grieved  more  bitterly  than  before, 
and  I  applied  myself  to  severer  penance,  of  which  I 
speak  not  here. 

THE   FIFTH    STEP 

SELF-KNOWLEDGE 

Fifthly  :  being  thus  illuminated,  and  seeing 
nothing  in  myself  but  defects,  I  condemned  myself, 
knowing  and  perceiving  most  certainly  that  I  was 
worthy  of  Hell,  from  which  knowledge  I  received  a 
still  more  bitter  sorrow.  And  I  would  have  you 
understand  that  between  these  *  steps '  I  have  men- 
tioned a  certain  time  elapsed.  Wherefore  we  should 
have  great  pity  and  sorrow  of  heart  for  the  soul 
who  moves  so  slowly  and  with  such  grief,  going  to 
God  so  heavily  and  making  such  slight  advance.    As 


CONVERSION   OF   BLESSED  ANGELA  93 

for  me,  I  know  that  I  delayed  at  each  step,  and 
wept,  not  having  the  grace  to  advance  at  the  time, 
although  it  was  a  certain  consolation  to  me  to  weep 
at  each  step  :  truly  a  bitter  consolation. 

THE   SIXTH    STEP 

THE   ILLUMINATION   OF    THE    KNOWLEDGE  OF 

SIN 

When  I  passed  the  sixth  and  next  step  I  received 
a  certain  illumination  of  grace  by  which  was  con- 
ferred on  me  a  profound  knowledge  of  all  my  sins, 
and  I  began  to  see  that  by  offending  God  I  had  also 
offended  all  creatures  made  for  me,  and  from  the 
depths  of  my  soul  my  sins  were  all  brought  back  into 
my  memory :  and  I  deeply  pondered  them  in  the 
confession  which  I  made.  And  I  invoked  all  the 
Saints  and  the  Blessed  Virgin  that  they  would 
intercede  for  me,  and  beg  the  merciful  Lord,  who 
had  conferred  such  great  benefits  on  me,  to  have 
mercy  on  me,  and,  since  I  knew  myself  to  be  dead 
in  sins,  to  cause  me  to  live  again,  reviving  me  by  His 
grace.  And  I  begged  all  creatures,  all  of  whom  I 
saw  myself  to  have  offended  (inasmuch  as  I  had 
offended  their  Creator),  not  to  accuse  me  before  God. 
And  it  seemed  to  me  that  all  creatures  had  pity  on 


94  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

me,  and  also  all  Saints ;  and  then  the  grace  was 
given  me  of  praying  to  God  with  a  great  fire  of  love 
more  abundantly  than  I  had  ever  been  wont  to. 


THE   SEVENTH    STEP 

THE   SIGHT   OF  THE   CROSS 

Seventhly,  was  given  to  me  the  special  grace  of 
gazing  on  the  Cross,  on  which  with  the  eyes  of  the 
heart  and  of  the  body  I  beheld  Jesus  Christ  dead  for 
us  :  but  this  vision  and  contemplation  were,  as  yet, 
insipid  to  me,  though  I  conceived  a  great  grief  by 
means  of  them. 

THE   EIGHTH   STEP 

THE     KNOWLEDGE     OF     THE     CAUSE    OF     CHRIST'S 
DEATH 

Eighthly,  there  was  given  me,  while  gazing  on  the 
Cross,  a  further  knowledge  of  how  Christ  had  died 
for  our  sins  ;  and  then  I  recognised  all  my  own  sins, 
and  realised  that  I  had  crucified  Him.  But  I  did 
not  yet  know  of  what  great  benefit  the  Passion  of 
Christ  had  been  to  me,  nor  did  I  then  understand,  so 
profoundly  as  afterwards,  how  He  had  withdrawn  me 
from  sin  and  converted  me  to  penance  and  died  for 


CONVERSION   OF   BLESSED   ANGELA  95 

me.  Nevertheless,  in  the  knowledge  of  the  Cross 
that  I  then  had,  I  received  such  a  fire  of  love  and 
compunction,  that  standing  by  the  Cross  I  stripped 
myself,  in  resolution,  of  everything,  and  offered  Him 
my  whole  self;  then  it  was  too,  though  with  trembling, 
that  I  promised  Him  to  observe  perpetual  chastity, 
and  not  offend  Him  with  any  of  my  members, 
accusing  all  my  members  in  turn  of  their  past  deeds. 
And  I  implored  Him  to  give  me  the  grace  of  observ- 
ing this  promise  of  chastity,  and  the  guarding  of  all 
my  senses,  for,  on  the  one  hand,  I  feared  to  promise 
these  things,  and,  on  the  other,  the  aforesaid  fire  of 
love  urged  me  so  that  I  could  not  do  otherwise. 

THE  NINTH   STEP 

THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  THE  WAY  OF   THE   CROSS 

Afterwards  was  given  me,  in  the  ninth  place,  a 
desire  to  seek  the  Way  of  the  Cross,  that  I  might 
stand  at  its  foot  and  find  the  refuge  to  which  all 
sinners  fly.  And  I  was  illuminated  and  instructed, 
and  the  Way  of  the  Cross  was  made  known  to  me  in 
the  following  manner.  .  For  it  was  revealed  to  me 
that  if  I  wished  to  go  to  the  Cross,  I  should  strip 
myself  so  as  to  travel  thither  more  lightly  and  more 
freely  ;  in  other  words,  that  I  should  forgive  all  who 


96  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

had  offended  me,  and  that  I  should  strip  myself  of 
all  earthly  things,  of^all  men  and  women,  friends  and 
relations,  and  of  my  possessions  and  of  my  very  self, 
and  give  my  heart  to  Christ  who  had  conferred  on  me 
such  great  benefits  as  I  have  mentioned,  and  thus 
walk  over  a  road  of  thorns,  a  road,  that  is,  of  tribu- 
lation. And  so  I  began  to  give  up  good  clothes  and 
dresses  and  delicate  food,  and  also  head-dresses. 
But  as  yet  this  was  a  cause  of  shame  and  suffering  to 
me,  because  I  did  not  feel  much  the  love  of  God,  and 
I  was  living  with  my  husband,  so  that  it  was  bitter 
to  me  when  I  heard  or  sustained  any  injury ;  I 
suffered,  however,  as  patiently  as  I  could.  Now  it 
happened  at  that  time  by  the  will  of  God  that  my 
mother  died,  who  was  a  ^reat  impediment  to  me  in 
the  way  of  the  Lord,  and  my  husband  also  died,  and 
all  my  sons  in  a  short  space  of  time.  And  because  I 
had  commenced  the  aforesaid  Road  of  the  Cross  and 
had  begged  God  to  deliver  me  from  them,  I  received 
a  great  consolation  from  their  death,  although  I 
suffered  somewhat  with  them  in  their  death,  yet  I 
thought  that  henceforward,  as  God  had  granted  me 
this  grace,  my  heart  would  for  ever  be  in  His  Heart 
and  Will,  and  the  Will  and  Heart  of  God  in  my 
heart. 


CONVERSION   OF   BLESSED  ANGELA  97 

THE    TENTH    STEP 

THE  APPARITION   OF    CHRIST  CRUCIFIED 

In  the  tenth  place,  when  I  inquired  of  God  what 
1  could  do  to  be  more  pleasing  to  Him,  He,  in  His 
kindness,  appeared  several  times  to  me  both  sleeping 
and  watching,  crucified  on  the  Cross,  and  bid  me  gaze 
into  His  wounds,  and  showed  me  in  a  wonderful  way 
how  He  had  endured  all  for  me  ;  and  this  happened 
several  times.     lAnd  when  He  was  showing  me  all  the 
sufferings  one  by  one  that  He  had  endured  for  me 
He  would  say  to  me  :2^*  What  then  canst  thou  do  for 
me  that  shall  suffice  ?  L    Also  He  appeared  to  me 
many  times  watching,  though  less  pleasingly  to  me 
than  while  I  slept,  although  He  always  appeared  to 
me  in  great  pain  and  sorrow.     And  he  showed  me 
the  sufferings  of  His  Head  and,  in  particular,  the  Hair 
torn  out  of  His  Eyebrows  and  Beard  and  enumerated 
all  the  scourgings  that  had  been  inflicted  on  Him, 
assigning  each  to  the  part  of  His  Body  where  He 
had    endured   them,   and   said    to   me :   *  All   this  I 
endured  for  thee.'     And  then  were  brought  back  into 
my  memory  all  my  sins,  and  it  was  shown  me  how,  by 
my  own  sins,  I  had  again  struck  Christ  Jesus,  and 
what  great  grief  I  ought  to  have  ;  and  then  indeed  I 
experienced  a  greater  grief  for  my  sins  than  ever  I 

H 


98  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

had  had  before,  and,  showing  me  His  Passion,  He 
would  say :  *  What  canst  thou  do  for  me  that  shall 
suffice  ? '  And  then  I  groaned  heavily  and  wept  so 
ardently  that  my  tears  burnt  my  flesh  to  such  an 
extent  that  I  had  to  apply  cold  water  for  refresh- 
ment. 

THE    ELEVENTH     STEP 

THE  SEVERITY  OF  HER  PENANCE  AND  HER   FLIGHT 
FROM  THE  WORLD 

In  the  eleventh  place  I  determined,  on  account 
of  my  sins,  to  perform  a  severer  penance,  which  I 
imagined  and  endeavoured  to  perform  and  of  which 
I  cannot  here  speak,  and,  as  it  did  not  appear  to  me 
that  I  could  do  sufficient  penance  amid  the  circum- 
stances of  the  world,  I  determined  to  completely 
abandon  everything  so  as  to  be  able  to  do  penance 
and  come  to  the  Cross  as  had  been  inspired  me  by 
God.  Now  this  determination  was  granted  me  by 
the  grace  of  God,  in  the  following  marvellous 
manner.  For,  when  I  vehemently  desired  to  become 
poor,  I  would  frequently  think,  with  much  anxiety, 
that  I  might  perchance  die  before  I  should  have 
arrived  at  poverty,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  I  would 
be  assaulted  by  many  temptations  :  as,  for  instance. 


CONVERSION   OF  BLESSED  ANGELA  99 

that  I  was  young  and  that,  for  that  reason,  begging 
might  be  a  great  danger  and  a  shame  to  me.  It 
would  also  be  suggested  to  me  that,  if  I  did  this,  I 
should  have  to  die  of  hunger,  of  cold,  and  nakedness, 
and  that,  moreover,  all  my  friends  would  dissuade  me 
from  it.  At  length,  by  the  mercy  of  God,  my 
heart  was  enlightened,  and  with  that  illumination, 
there  came  to  me  such  a  fixity  of  purpose  that  I  did 
not  then  think,  nor  do  I  now  think,  that  I  can  ever 
lose  it  for  all  eternity,  and  I  disposed  and  determined 
myself  that  if  it  were  necessary  for  me  to  die  of 
hunger,  or  nakedness,  or  shame,  if  that  pleased  or 
could  please  God,  I  would  in  no  way,  on  account  of 
those  possibilities,  give  up  my  purpose,  even  if  I  were 
certain  that  all  those  evils  I  have  mentioned  would 
occur  to  me,  because,  even  if  they  all  occurred,  I  should 
be  dying  for  God's  sake  of  my  own  will,  and  then  it 
was  that  I  really  took  the  determination  which  has 
been  mentioned. 

TWELFTH    STEP 

THE   MEMORY   OF   THE   PASSION 

My  next  and  twelfth  step  was  that  I  begged  the 
Blessed  Mother  of  Christ  and  St.  John  the  Evangelist 
by  the  grief  which  they  had  endured  that  they  would 

H  2 


100  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

obtain  for  me  a  certain  sign  by  which  I  might  always 
keep  in  memory  the  Passion  of  Christ. 


THE   THIRTEENTH    STEP. 

THE  SHOWING  OF   THE   HEART  OF  CHRIST 

In     the    thirteenth    place,    persevering    in    this 

prayer  and  desire,  I  fell  into  a  dream  in  which  the 

Heart  of  Christ  was  shown  me  and  it  was  said  to  me  : 

[^In  this  heart  there  is  no   falsehood,  but  all  things 

there  are  true^ 

And  it  appeared  that  this  happened  to  me  because 
I  had  ridiculed  a  certain  preacher. 


THE    FOURTEENTH   STEP 

A  CLEARER  KNOWLEDGE  OF   CHRIST 

The  fourteenth  step  was  on  this  wise.  Once 
when  I  was  standing  in  prayer,  Christ  showed  Himself 
to  me  watching,  more  clearly,  and  gave  me  greater 
knowledge  of  Himself,  and  then  called  me  to  Him  and 
bid  me  place  my  mouth  on  the  wound  of  His  side,  and 
it  seemed  to  me  that  I  did  so,  and  that  I  drank  His 
blood  flowing  freshly  out  of  His  side,  and  it  was  given 
me  to  understand  that  in  that  blood  He  would  wash 


.     CONVERSION   OF   BLESSED  ANGELA  lOI 

me.  And  at  this  point  I  began  to  receive  great  consola- 
tion, although  the  consideration  of  the  Passion  caused 
me  sadness,  and  I  asked  the  Lord  that  He  would  make 
me  to  shed  and  pour  out  all  my  blood  for  His  love's 
sake  as  He  had  done  for  me,  and  I  desired,  for  the 
sake  of  His  love,  that  all  my  limbs  should  be  afflicted 
and  should  suffer  a  vile  and  more  bitter  death  than 
His  Passion,  and  I  took  thought  and  desired  to  find 
someone  to  kill  me,  so  long  as  I  should  suffer  for  His 
faith  or  for  His  love,  and  I  thought  that  I  would  beg 
Him  to  grant  me  this  grace,  namely  that  as  Christ 
was  crucified  on  a  tree  He  should  crucify  me  on  a 
river  bank  or  in  some  very  vile  way.  And,  because  I 
was  not  worthy  to  die  as  the  holy  martyrs  had  died, 
I  desired  to  die  a  viler  and  more  bitter  death,  and  I 
could  not  think  of  a  death  vile  enough  for  my  desire, 
which  should  be  altogether  unlike  the  death  of  the 
saints,  for  of  their  death  I  deemed  myself  altogether 
unworthy. 

THE   FIFTEENTH  STEP 

THE   EXPERIENCE  OF  THE  GRIEF  OF 
CHRIST'S    PASSION 

In  the  fifteenth  place,  I  began  to  fix  my  desire 
on  the  Virgin  Mother  of  God  and  on  St.  John,  dwelling 


I02  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

on  the  thought  of  them  in  my  memory,  and  begging 
them,  by  the  grief  which  they  endured  at  the  Lord's 
Passion,  to  obtain  for  me  the  grace  always  to  feel  the 
sorrow  of  Christ's  passion,  or,  at  least,  the  sorrow  that 
they  had  endured  ;  and  they  obtained  for  me,  by  their 
prayers,  this  grace,  and  once  St  John  obtained  for  me 
(so  great  a  grief  that  it  was  among  the  greatest  I  had 
lever  felt.  And  it  was  given  to  me  to  understand 
/that  St.  John  had  suffered  such  grief  at  the  passion 
and  death  of  Christ,  and  at  the  grief  of  the  Mother  of 
Christ,  that  I  thought,  and  still  think,  that  he  was 
more  than  martyr.  But  this  time  was  given  me  a 
desire  of  expropriating  myself  with  my  whole  will, 
and  although  I  was  much  assaulted  by  the  Devil,  and 
frequently  tempted  not  to  do  so,  and  was  prevented 
having  communication  with  the  friars  minor,  and  with 
all  from  whom  it  was  fitting  for  me  to  take  counsel,  on 
no  account,  whatever  good  or  evil  things  might  have 
happened  to  me,  could  I  have  abstained  from  devoting 
all  my  goods  to  the  poor,  and,  even  if  I  should  not 
have  been  able  to  do  this,  from  at  least  stripping  my- 
self completely  of  them  all.  For  it  did  not  seem  to 
me  that  I  could  keep  anything  without  gravely 
offending  Him  who  had  so  enlightened  me.  However, 
I  still  remained  in  bitterness  on  account  of  my  sins, 
and  did  not  know  whether  what   I   was  doing  was 


CONVERSION   OF  BLESSED  ANGELA  103 

pleasing  to  God,  but,  with  bitter  groaning,  I  cried  to 
Him  saying:  'Lord,  even  if  I  am  damned,  I  will 
nevertheless  do  penance  and  will  strip  myself  of 
everything  and  serve  Thee.'  And  while  I  was  still  in 
bitterness  on  account  of  my  sins,  and  did  not  yet  feel 
any  divine  sweetness,  the  state  of  my  soul  was 
changed  in  the  following  way. 

THE   SIXTEENTH   STEP 

HER  CONSOLATION    IN    READING   THE 
PATERNOSTER 

My  sixteenth  step  was  on  an  occasion  when  1 
had  come  to  Church  and  was  praying  God  to  grant 
me  a  certain  grace.  And  while  I  was  praying,  and 
saying  the  Paternoster^  God  placed  the  Paternoster 
itself  in  my  heart  with  such  clearness  and  such  an 
understanding  of  the  divine  goodness  and  my  own 
unworthiness,  that  I  cannot  express  it.  The  prayer 
was  expounded  to  me  in  my  heart,  word  by  word, 
and  I  said  it  very  slowly,  with  contrition  and  with 
compunction,  so  that,  although  on  one  hand  I  was 
weeping  for  my  sins  and  my  unworthiness,  which  I 
there  recognised,  I  yet  had  great  consolation  and 
began  to  taste  somewhat  of  the  Divine  sweetness, 
for,  in  the  Paternoster y  I  began  to  learn  better  the 


104  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

Divine  goodness  than  in  any  other  thing,  and  to  this 
day  I  still  find  it  better  there  than  elsewhere. 
Moreover,  inasmuch  as  my  sins  and  unworthiness 
were  shown  to  me  in  that  Paternoster^  I  began  to  be 
so  ashamed  of  them  that  I  did  not  dare  lift  my  eyes 
to  heaven,  or  to  the  crucifix,  or  to  anything  else, 
but  I  recommended  myself  to  the  Blessed  Virgin 
that  she  should  obtain  for  me  grace  and  pardon  for 
my  sins,  while  I  myself  still  remained  in  bitterness 
on  account  of  them.  JOh,  sinners,  how  heavily  does 
the  soul  go  forth  to  penance  !  for  her  feet  are  so 
strongly  fettered,  and  she  has  such  evil  counsellors 
who  are  indeed  but  obstacles,  the  world,  the  flesh, 
and  the  deviL_/(lCnow,  moreover,  that  in  all  these 
steps  that  I  have  mentioned  I  delayed  for  a  good 
time  before  I  could  move  to  the  next,  but  in  some  I 
waited  longer  time,  in  others,  less. 

THE   SEVENTEENTH  STEP 

SHE  OBTAINS  A  GREATER  FAITH   THROUGH 
THE   BLESSED  VIRGIN 

In  the  seventeenth  step,  it  was  shown  me  that 
the  Blessed  Virgin  had  obtained  for  me  a  grace  by 
which  she  gave  me  a  more  than  human  faith,  for  it 
seemed  to  me,  up  to  that  time,  that  my  faith  had 


CONVERSION   OF   BLESSED  ANGELA  10$ 

been,  as  it  were,  dead  in  comparison  with  that  which 
she  obtained  for  me,  and  that  my  tears  had  before 
been  scanty  in  comparison  with  those  which  I  after- 
wards had.  For,  afterwards,  I  grieved  over  the 
Passion  of  Christ,  and  the  sorrows  of  His  mother, 
and  what  I  had  done  before,  however  great  it 
may  have  been,  seemed  to  me  as  nothing ;  and  I 
wished  to  do  greater  penance^  and  I  enclosed  my 
heart  in  the  Passion  of  Christ,  and  hope  was  given 
me  that,  in  that  Passion,  I  might  become  free.  And 
now  I  began  to  receive  consolation  in  dreams,  and  I 
had  beautiful  dreams,  and  I  began  to  receive  sweet- 
ness and  consolation  from  God,  both  in  my  soul,  and 
in  my  body  continuously,  both  waking  and  sleeping. 
But  because  I  did  not  yet  enjoy  a  perfect  certitude, 
my  pleasure  was  mingled  with  bitterness,  nor  did  my 
heart  yet  rest,  for  I  desired  something  else  as  well  as 
God. 

AN  ADDITION  FROM  THE  MS.  OF  ARNOLD 
THE  AUTHOR 
She  told  me  one  out  of  many  of  these  dreams 
and  visions,  saying.  On  one  time,  while  I  was  in  the 
dungeon  in  which  I  had  shut  myself  up  for  the 
greater  Lent,  and  was  exercising  myself  in  love,  and 
in  meditation  on  one  word  of  the  Gospel,  which  was 
of  great   condescension  and   charity,   being  near  a 


OF  THE 

'MIVERSITY 

OF 


I06  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

book,  which  happened  to  be  a  missal,  and,  desiring  to 
see  that  word  written  so  much  that  I  could  hardly 
restrain  myself  from  opening  the  book  with  my 
hands,  I  was  overcome  by  sleep  and,  being  led 
away  in  vision,  it  was  said  to  me  that  the  under- 
standing of  that  particular  epistle  is  so  delightful  a 
thing  that,  if  one  truly  understood  it,  one  would 
forget  all  earthly  things,  and  he  who  was  leading  me 
said  to  me  :  Wouldst  thou  prove  this?  And  when  I 
agreed  and  desired  to  prove  it,  he  gave  me  straight- 
way the  proof.  And  I  then  understood  so  clearly 
the  goods  of  God  that  I  forthwith  forgot  all  earthly 
things.  And  he  who  was  leading  me  said  again  to 
me,  that  the  understanding  of  the  Gospel  was  so 
delightful  a  thing  that  if  one  understood  it,  one 
would  forget  not  only  all  earthly  things,  but  also 
oneself  And  he  made  me  prove  this  too,  and  I  forth- 
with  understood  the  goods  of  God  with  such  delight, 
that  I  besought  of  him  who  was  leading  me  that  I 
might  never  fall  from  that  state.  But  he  replied 
that  my  petition  could  not  yet  be  granted,  and 
straightway  led  me  back,  and  I  opened  my  eyes 
and  felt  a  great  joy  in  those  things  which  I  had 
seen,  though  I  bitterly  grieved  at  having  lost  them. 
And  it  still  delights  me  much  to  recall  them,  and 
Z£om  that  moment  so  great  a  certitude  and  light  and 


CONVERSION   OF   BLESSED  ANGELA  107 

ardour  of  the  love  of  God  has  been  mine,  that  I  can 
confidently  assert  that  nothing  is  ever  preached 
i,  about  the  love  of  God,  and  that  those  who  try  to 
\  preach  about  it  cannot  do  so^  for  they  do  not  under- 
stand the  words  they  use.  So  indeed  had  he  said  to 
me  who  led  me  away  in  vision. 

THE    EIGHTEENTH    STEP 

ARDOUR  AND   ASSIDUITY  IN    PRAYER 

In  the  eighteenth  step  I  began  to  have  such  a 
sentiment  of  God,  and  such  delight  in  prayer  that  I 
would  forget  to  eat,  and  I  used  to  desire  that  eating 
were  unnecessary,  in  order  that  I  might  remain  in 
prayer,  and,  with  this  feeling,  was  mingled  the 
temptation  not  to  eat,  or,  if  I  did,  to  eat  as  little  as 
possible  ;  but  I  knew  that  this  was  a  delusion.  And 
there  was  such  a  fire  of  love  in  my  heart  that  I  was 
not  wearied  by  kneeling  or  by  any  other  penance. 
Afterwards  indeed  I  attained  to  a  greater  fire  and 
fervour  of  love  of  the  Divine  Charity.  For,  if  I  heard 
anyone  speaking  of  God,  I  would  groan,  and  I  could 
not  have  refrained  from  doing  so,  even  if  anyone  had 
stood  over  me  with  an  axe  to  slay  me.  This  happened 
to  me,  for  the  first  time,  when  I  sold  my  farm  in  order 
to  give  the  money  to  the  poor,  for  it  was  the  best 


I08  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

piece  of  land  I  had.  And  formerly  I  used  to  make 
fun  of  Petruccio,  but  afterwards  I  could  in  no  way  do 
so.  Frequently  also  whenever  I  heard  anyone  speak 
about  God  I  would  groan  even  when  -in  company. 
And,  when  people  would  say  to  me  that  I  was 
possessed  on  account  of  what  happened  to  me,  I 
would  admit  that  I  was  sick  and  out  of  myself,  and 
unable  to  do  otherwise  ;  yet  I  could  not,  by  this 
admission,  content  my  enemies,  but  was  put  to  great 
shame  by  them.  And  when  I  saw  a  picture  of  the 
Passion  of  Christ  I  could  hardly  hold  myself  together 
but  would  fall  into  a  fever,  so  that  my  companion 
began  to  hide  from  me  pictures  of  the  Passion  as 
much  as  she  could,  so  that  I  might  not  see  them. 
In  this  time  of  groaning  I  had  many  illuminations, 
emotions,  visions,  and  consolations,  some  of  which 
will  be  related  further  on. 


109 


PART    II 
OF  THE  PROGRESS   OF  BLESSED   ANGELA 

CHAPTER    I 
OF    HER  VARIOUS  TEMPTATIONS 

Lest  I  should  be  exalted  and  set  up  by  the  multitude 
and  magnitude  of  the  visions  which  were  vouchsafed 
to  me,  I  was  given  a  manifold  tempter,  by  whom  I 
suffered,  in  the  body  as  well  as  in  the  soul,  many 
temptations  and  trials.     Indeed  I  think  it  is  hardly 
possible  to  describe  the  infirmities  and  passions   of 
my  body,  for  I  have  not  a  single  member  which  does 
not  suffer  horribly,  and   the   innumerable   torments 
which  I  undergo  are  increased  by  many  devils.     For 
never  am  I  free  from  pain,  infirmities,  and  weariness, 
and  I  am  so  weak  and  fragile  that  I  am  constantly 
obliged  to  lie  down,  and  I  have  no  member  which  is 
not  struck,  tortured,  and  punished  by  the  devils.     So 
ill  am  I  always,  and  my  limbs  so  swollen  and  painful. 


no  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

that  I  can  only  move  with  great  pain,  and  lying  down 
causes  me  great  weariness,  and  I  am  not  able  to  eat 
sufficiently.  But,  from  the  very  same  devils,  I  under- 
go torments  and  passions  of  the  soul  almost  con- 
tinually, and  these  latter  I  declare  to  be  incomparably 
more  numerous  and  severe  than  those  of  the  body. 
I  can  think  of  no  other  similitude  to  describe  them 
than  that  of  the  state  of  a  man,  who  is  hanged  with  a 
rope  by  the  neck,  whose  hands  are  tied  behind  his 
back,  and  his  eyes  bound,  and  who  is  left,  still  living 
upon  the  gibbet,  without  help  and  support  and  with- 
out the  smallest  remedy.  I  say  that  the  tortures  I 
endure  from  the  devils  are  more  desperate  and  cruel 
than  these.  I  see  my  soul  hanging  in  like  manner, 
with  no  support,  and  all  her  strength  overthrown  by 
the  devils,  and  yet  with  knowledge  and  consideration 
left  to  her.  And  so  great  is  the  dolour  of  the  soul, 
when  she  sees  all  her  strength  overthrown  and  fallen 
and  her  inability  to  oppose  herself  to  herself,  that,  at 
times,  I  can  hardly  weep  for  despairing  sorrow  and 
anger,  and  again,  at  other  times,  I  weep  inconsolably. 
Sometimes  even  I  can  scarcely  restrain  myself  from 
tearing  myself  to  pieces,  so  great  is  my  anger  ;  and  at 
other  times  I  cannot  help  striking  m3^self  so  horribly 
that  swellings  are  produced  on  my  head  and  limbs. 
And  the  soul,  seeing  all  her  strength  fall  and  depart 


HER  TEMPTATIONS  III 

from  her,  groans,  and  I  call  almost  unceasingly  to  my 
God  :  *  My  God,  my  God,  forsake  me  not ! ' 

Yet  another  torment  I  endured,  which  was  caused 
by  the  renewal,  within  me,  of  all  the  vices.  Not  in 
such  a  manner  as  to  subject  my  reason  durably,  but 
in  a  way  to  cause  me  great  suffering.  And  vices 
which  had  never  been  in  my  body  came  to  me  and 
burned  me,  bringing  me  to  great  suffering.  These, 
however,  had  not  a  continued  life  and  their  death 
brought  me  great  consolation.  And  I  perceived  that 
I  had  been  given  over  to  many  devils,  who  caused 
dead  vices,  which  I  had  abhorred,  to  revive  in  me,  and 
who  had  added  many  which  had  never  existed.  And 
I,  remembering  that  God,  when  here,  was  afflicted, 
despised,  and  poor,  wished  that,  were  it  necessary,  my 
troubles  might  be  doubled. 

And  when  I  am  in  the  most  horrible  darkness  of 
the  devils,  wherein  all  hope  of  good  is  utterly  lacking, 
then  those  vices  arise  in  my  body,  which,  in  my  inner- 
most soul,  I  know  to  be  dead,  and  are  awakened 
only  by  the  devils,  who  also  arouse  others  that  never 
existed.  In  the  body  I  suffer  in  at  least  three  parts, 
and  at  times  so  great  is  the  fire  of  concupiscence 
that,  until  my  confessor  forbade  me,  I  was  wont  to 
apply  material  fire  to  extinguish  the  other.  When  I 
find  myself  in    that  darkness  I  verily  believe   that, 


112  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

could  I  choose,  I  would  rather  be  roasted  alive  than 
remain  in  it,  yea,  I  cry  and  call  for  death,  no  matter 
in  what  way  God  should  bestow  it  upon  me,  and  I 
say  to  Him  :  *  O  Lord,  if  Thou  must  put  me  in  Hell, 
delay  not,  but  do  it  at  once,  and,  inasmuch  as  Thou  hast 
deserted  me,  finish,  and  plunge  me  into  the  depth  ! ' 
I  know  that  all  this  is  the  work  of  the  devils,  and 
that  those  vices  have  no  life  in  the  soul,  because  she 
does  not  consent  to  them,  and  that  the  body  suffers 
violence ;  but,  were  it  to  continue,  the  body  could  not 
endure  it,  so  weary  and  full  of  pain  is  it.     And  the 
soul  perceives  that  all  her  strength  is  taken  from  her, 
and,  although  she  does  not  consent  to  the  vices,  yet 
she  has  not  complete  power  to  resist  them,  and  then 
she  sees  herself  to  be  against  God,  and  so  she  falls 
and  is  tortured  by  the  devils.     And  a  certain  vice, 
greater   than    all  the  others,  which  had  never  been 
mine,  is  permitted  by  God  to  come  to  me,  and  I  know 
clearly  that  it  is  permitted  by  God.     And,  against 
the  said  vice,  God  gives  me  a  certain  strength,  by 
which  I  am  delivered.    (And  had  I  not,  apart  from 
this,  an  assured  faith  in  God,  by  this  token  alone,  I 
should  have  a  certain  and  sure  hope,  which  it  would  be 
impossible   to   doubt.  /  And    that    strength    always 
prevails  against  the  vice,  and  holds  me,  and  does  not 
permit  me  to  fall,  and  so  great  is  its  power  that  it 


HER  TEMPTATIONS  II3 

not  only  holds  me,  but  gives  me  so  great  a  force 
of  strength,  that,  in  it,  I  know  God,  and  am  so 
illuminated  and  confirmed,  that  all  the  men  in  the 
world,  and.  all  the  Devils  in  Hell,  and  all  things  that 
are,  could  not  move  me  to  the  smallest  sin  ;  and,  with 
this  strength,  there  remains  to  me  faith  in  God. 
And  so  great  is  that  vice  that  I  am  ashamed  to  speak 
of  it,  and  it  seems  to  me  that,  were  the  aforesaid 
strength  taken  away  from  me,  there  is  nothing, 
Qcither  shame  nor  punishment,  which  could  iToId  me 
back  from  rushing  straightway  into  sin.  -  But  that 
strength  intervenes  and  delivers  me  manfully,  so  that 
neither  for  all  the  world  nor  all  the  evil  could  I  sin. 
And  these  labours  I  endured  for  two  years  and  more. 
Within  my  soul  a  certain,  pride  and  a  certain 
humility  were  wont  to  struggle  most  tediously.  The 
cause  of  the  humility  is  the  sight  of  myself,  fallen 
from  all  good  and  outside  all  strength  and  all  grace, 
and  full  of  such  a  multitude  of  sins  and  defects,  that 
it  is  impossible  to  think  that  God  still  wishes  to  have 
mercy  upon  me.  And  I  see  that  I  am  the  home  of 
the  Devil,  and  the  servant  and  the  daughter  of  the 
demons,  outside  all  rectitude  and  veracity,  and  worthy 
of  the  lowest  depth  of  Hell.  And  this  humility 
which  I  describe  is  not  such  as  I  have  had  at  other 
times,  which  brought  content  to  my  soul,  and  led  her 

I 


I  14  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

to  reflect  upon  Divine-^goodness,  but  it  is  a  humility 
which  brings  me  nothing  but  innumerable  ills.  And 
in  my  soul  I  see  myself  to  be  surrounded  by  demons 
and  full  of  defects  in  soul  and  body,  and  with  no 
power  of  remembering  God,  for  on  every  side  He  is 
closed  to  me,  and  grace  taken  from  me,  and  it  is  His 
will  that  I  should  have  no  memory  of  Him.  CThe  sight 
of  my  own  damnation  does  not  cause  me  any  care,  so 
much  greater  is  my  care  and  grief  at  having  offended 
my  Creator,  whom  for  all  the  good  and  evil  which 
can  be  named  I  would  not  have  offended  nor  offend. 
Wherefore,  seeing  my  aforesaid  innumerable  offences, 
I  fight  with  all  my  members  against  the  demons,  that 
I  may  conquer  them  and  prevail  against  the  aforesaid 
vices,  which  1  can  by  no  means  do  completely  ;  for 
I  can  find  no  ford  nor  opening  by  which  I  can  escape, 
nor  any  escape  nor  any  remedy  to  help  me,  and  I 
meditate  upon  the  depth  of  my  fall. 

Wherefore,  being  frequently  plunged  into  depths 
of  humility,  I  see  my  sins  and  the  superabundance  of 
my  wickednesses  and  iniquities,  yet  I  see  no  way  by 
which  I  can  make  them  manifest  and  discover  all 
their  hypocrisy.  I  would  like  to  go  through  the 
cities  and  plains  and  hang  meat  and  fish  about 
my  neck  saying :  '  Here  is  that  most  vile  woman, 
full  of  evil  and  deceit,   sower  of  all  vices  and  ills ! ' 


HER   TEMPTATIONS  II5 

For  I  did  well  for  the  glory  of  men,  and  I  replied  to 
persons  who  invited  us,  that  I  ate  neither  fish  nor 
meat,  when  I  was,  all  the  time,  full  of  gormandising, 
gluttony,  and  drunkenness,  and  making  a  parade  of 
taking  only  what  was  necessary.  I  was  eager  to  be 
poor  exteriorly,  and  when  I  lay  down  I  had  many 
coverings,  which  in  the  morning  I  caused  to  be  taken 
away,  lest  persons  coming  by  should  remark  upon 
them.  See  the  devil  of  my  soul  and  the  malice  of 
my  heart !  Listen  to  my  hypocrisy,  and  learn  that 
I  am  the  daughter  of  pride,  a  deceiver  and  the 
abomination  of  God !  For  I  seemed  to  be  the 
daughter  of  prayer,  while  I  was  the  daughter  of  anger, 
pride,  and  the  Devil,  and  while  I  seemed  to  have  God 
in  my  soul,  and  in  my  cell  divine  consolation,  I  had 
really  the  Devil  in  both  soul  and  cell.  And  know 
also,  that  the  whole  time  of  my  life,  I  was  eager 
to  have  the  fame  of  holiness,  and  that,  in  truth,  on 
account  of  the  hidden  malice  and  deceit  of  my 
heart,  1  deceived  many  people  and  am  the  murderer 
of  many  souls  and  of  my  own. 

And  afterwards,  being  in  this  abyss,  I  turned  to 
those  my  brethren  who  are  called  my  sons,  and  I 
said  to  them  :  '  Be  unwilling  to  believe  in  me  any 
more  :  see  ye  not  that  I  am  a  demoniac  ?  Do  ye,  who 
are  called  sons,  implore  of  God  this  justice,  that  the 


Il6  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

demons   may   depart   from  my   soul,   and   that   my 

worthless  deeds  may  be  made  manifest,  so  that  God 

may  be  no  longer  abused  through  me.    And  see  ye 

not  that  all  I  say  to  you  is    false,  and  see   ye   not 

that  were  there  no  malice  in  the  world  I,  out  of  my 

abundance,  could  fill  it  ?    Be  unwilling  to  believe  any 

more  in  me !     Be  unwilling  to  adore  any  more  this 

idol,  for  therein  is  hidden  the  Devil,  and  all  the  words 

that    I    have   spoken    to   you   were   diabolical    and 

deceitful.     I   implore  the  justice   of  God,   that   this 

idol  may  fall  and  be  broken,  and  that  her  gilded  and 

tinselled   words  and   her   diabolical    works   may   be 

made    manifest.     For,   in    order   that    I    might    be 

honoured  instead  of  God,  I  gilded  myself  with  divine 

words.     I  implore  that  the  Devil  may  depart  from 

this   idol,   and   that   the   world    may   be   no   longer 

deceived  by  this  woman.     Wherefore  I  beseech  the 

Son  of  God,  whom  I  dare  not  name,  that  if  He  will 

not  make  me  manifest  through  Himself,  that  He  will 

do  it  through  the  earth,  that  it  may  open  and  swallow 

me  up,  and  so  I  shall  be  an  example,  and  men  and 

women   will   say :    *  Oh,   how   she   was   gilded    and 

covered   with    tinsel !    and    how    entirely    deceitful 

within  and  without ! '     I  would  like  to  have  a  chain 

about  my  neck  instead  of  any  decoration,  and  to  be 

dragged  through  cities  and  plains,  and  I  would  like 


HER    TEMPTATIONS  I!7 

the  boys  who  lead  me  to  say :  '  This  is  that  most 
vile  woman  who,  all  her  life,  showed  false  for  true  ! ' 
And  I  would  like  the  men  and  women  to  say : 
'  Oh,  behold  the  miracle  that  God  has  done !  For  He 
has  caused  the  malice,  iniquities,  and  sins  which  were 
hidden  the  whole  time  of  her  life  to  be  made  manifest 
and  to  be  told  by  herself  But,  were  all  this  said, 
it  would  scarcely  satisfy  the  soul :  and  know,  that 
though  I  was  in  a  desperate  state,  I  never  despaired 
to  such  an  extent  as  to  despair  of  God  and  His 
goodness,  and  I  made  a  compact  between  Him  and 
me.  And  yet  1  was  certain  that  there  was  no  person 
in  the  world  so  full  of  malice  and  damnation  as  I  was, 
and  that  God  permitted  whatever  He  gave  to  me 
and  bestowed  upon  me  for  my  greater  despair  and 
damnation.  Wherefore  I  beseech  you  all  to  implore 
the  justice  of  God  that  He  may  not  delay  to  extract 
the  Devil  from  this  idol  and  make  manifest  her  most 
worthless  deeds,  for,  because  I  cannot  make  manifest 
my  malice  and  the  lies  of  my  soul,  my  head  is 
splitting,  my  body  fails,  and  my  eyes  are  becoming 
blinded  through  the  multitude  of  my  tears,  and  all 
my  bones  are  out  of  joint.  But  I  rejoice  because,  in 
part,  my  malice  begins  to  be  made  manifest.  And  I 
perceived  that  all  these  things  which  I  have  described 
were  without  true  humility.     And  know,  thou,  who 


Il8  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

writest,  that,  in  comparison  with  all  my  sins,  iniquities 
and  false  use  of  words,  thou  writest  too  poorly,  for 
when  I  was  little  I  began  to  work  iniquity.  These 
and  other  similar  things  I  am  obliged  to  say,  plunged 
and  sunk  into  the  aforesaid  humility. 

After  these  things  came  pride,  for  I  wrought  all 
anger,  pride,  and  sadness,  and  I  was  most  bitter  and 
puffed  up.  And  from  the  good  which  God  did  to  me 
I  received  great  bitterness,  not  being  mindful  of  it 
as  a  means  of  assistance,  but  of  injury  and  painful 
amazement.  It  was  easy  to  see  that  in  me  there 
could  be  no  virtue,  and  verily  I  doubt  whether  there 
ever  was  any,  and  indeed,  I  see  no  reason  why  God 
should  permit  there  to  be  any.  In  this  temptation  I 
am  so  completely  possessed  by  anger  and  pride,  and 
am  so  bitter  and  puffed  up,  that  all  good  is  closed  to 
me  and  hidden  from  me,  and  my  pain  and  grief  are 
greater  than  I  can  say.  For,  unless  God  Himself 
should  change  me  altogether,  or  work  quite  differently 
in  my  soul,  it  would  not  console  me,  nor  do  me  any 
good,  were  all  the  wise  men  of  the  world  and  all  the 
saints  of  Paradise  to  speak  words  of  consolation  to 
me,  and  to  promise  me  every  good  thing  which  they 
could  name,  and  which  God  Himself  should  give  me. 
Indeed  I  should  not  believe  them,  for  they  would 
increase  my  trouble  and  sorrow,  and  would  cause  me 
greater  anger,  amazement,  and  sorrow  and  pain  than 


HER   TEMPTATIONS  II9 

I  can  say.  Wherefore  I  would  cheerfully  choose  and 
willingly  suffer  every  evil,  infirmity,  and  human  bodily 
pain  for  a  commutation  of  the  aforesaid  torments 
if  God  would  take  them  away  from  me.  And  I  often- 
times said  that  any  kind  of  torture  would  be  prefer- 
able and,  I  verily  believe,  a  lesser  evil  than  the  afore- 
said torments.  And  the  aforesaid  state  of  torment 
began,  in  some  degree,  before  the  pontificate  of  Pope 
Celestinus  and  lasted  for  more  than  two  years,  during 
which  time  I  was  often  tormented,  and  to  this  day  I 
am  not  wholly  cured,  although  I  only  suffer  now  for 
short  periods,  exteriorly  and  not  interiorly.  But 
since  I  was  in  this  state,  I  know  that  great  purging 
and  purification  of  soul  accompany  the  aforesaid 
evil  humility  and  pride.  For  by  them  I  acquire 
that  true  humility  without  which  no  one  can  be 
saved.  And  between  the  aforesaid  humility  and 
pride  my  soul  is  consumed  and  tortured.  And  the 
greater  the  humility,  the  greater  is  the  purification 
of  soul.  And,  through  the  knowledge  of  her  offences 
and  defects,  which  the  soul  obtains  through  the 
aforesaid  humility,  she  is  purged  of  pride  and  the 
devils,  and  therefore  the  more  she  is  levelled  and  im- 
poverished, and  the  lower  she  is  humiliated,  so  much 
the  more  purged  and  purified  she  is,  and  ready  to 
rise,  for  she  can  only  rise  inasmuch  as  she  is  humili- 
ated, levelled,  and  impoverished. 


I20  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 


PART     III 

OF  HER  MANIFOLD    VISIONS  AND 
CONSOLATIONS 


CHAPTER    I 

VISION    IN    WHICH   SHE   SAW   GOD   INASMUCH   A 
HE   IS   SUPREME   GOODNESS 

Blessed  be  God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
who  consoles  us  in  all  our  tribulations,  and  who  has 
deigned  to  console  me  a  sinner  in  every  tribulation. 
Now  after  that  striking  time  of  which  mention  is 
made  in  the  Eighteenth  Step  of  my  conversion,  and 
that  marvellous  illumination  which  I  received  whilst 
saying  the  Lord's  Prayer,  I  experienced  a  great 
consolation  of  the  sweetness  of  God  in  this  way.  I 
was  inspired  to  a  consideration  of  the  blessed  union 
of  the  Deity  and  the  Humanity  of  Christ,  and  of  the 
Divinity  and  Humanity  in  Christ.  And  I  felt  a 
greater  consolation  and  pleasure  in  this  meditation 


<jr     «  nc 

NIVERSITY 

OF 

GOD  AS   SUPREME   GOODNESS  121 

than  I  had  ever  felt  before,  so  great,  indeed,  that  I 
stood  in  my  cell  for  the  greater  part  of  those  days, 
shut  in  and  alone,  and  I  prayed,  as  it  were,  stupefied. 
And  so  greatly  was  my  heart  affected  by  the  delight 
of  that  meditation  that  I  at  length  lay  down  and 
lost  speech.  And  my  companion  came  in  to  me, 
and  thought  I  was  dying,  but  she  was  an  impediment 
to  me  and  wearied  me. 

Whilst  I  continued  in  this  state,  and  was  praying 
late  one  evening  in  my  cell,  it  seemed  to  me  as  if  I 
felt  nothing  of  God,  and  I  lamented  thereat,  and 
cried,  saying :  *  O  Lord,  that  which  I  do,  I  only  do 
to  find  Thee  !  Therefore  shall  I  find  Thee  when  I  have 
completed  these  things  ?  '  (For  I  had  not,  at  that 
time,  completely  bequeathed  all  my  possessions  to 
the  poor,  although  there  remained  but  little  to  be 
done.)  And  I  said  in  prayer  many  similar  things. 
And  He  replied  to  me  thus  :  *  What  desirest  thou  ? ' 
I  replied  :  *  I  want  not  gold  nor  silver,  and  if  Thou 
gavest  me  the  whole  world,  I  would  still  desire 
nothing  but  Thee  ! '  And  He  replied,  saying  :  *  Strive 
diligently,  and  ^prepare  thyself,  for  after  thou  hast 
finished  doing  that  which  thou  hast  commenced,  the 
whole  Trinity  will  come  to  thee.'  And  He  promised 
me  many  other  things,  and,  having  drawn  me  out  of 
much  tribulation,  He  dismissed  me  with  great  divine 


122  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

sweetness.  And  then  I  expectantly  awaited  the 
performance  of  those  things  which  had  been  promised 
to  me.  And,  although  I  had  been  left  with  so  much 
divine  sweetness,  I  related  what  had  been  said  to  me 
in  my  great  vision,  and  the  promises  which  had  been 
made  to  me,  to  my  companion,  with  some  hesitation. 
After  these  things  I  went  to  the  Church  of  St. 
Francis  at  Assisi,  and,  while  on  the  way  there,  I 
received  the  fulfilment  of  the  aforesaid  promise,  not- 
withstanding that  I  had  not  completely  bequeathed 
all  my  goods  to  the  poor,  because  a  certain  holy  man 
who  was  to  have  done  this  for  me  had  died,  and  so 
had  not  been  able  to  bring  it  to  an  end.  (This  man 
had  been  converted,  by  the  grace  of  God,  at  my 
admonitions,  and  had  died  while  he  was  in  the  act 
of  hastening  to  bestow  all  his  own  possessions  upon 
the  poor.  And,  though  he  had  not  been  able  to 
carry  out  his  intentions,  God  did  great  miracles 
through  him,  and  his  sepulchre  is  held  in  reverence.) 
While,  then,  I  went  towards  the  Church  of  St. 
Francis  at  Assisi,  praying  as  I  went  (and  amongst 
other  things  I  besought  Blessed  Francis  himself  to 
ask  of  God  to  make  me  observe  well  the  Rule  of 
Blessed  Francis,  to  which  I  had  lately  vowed  myself, 
and  to  acquire  for  me  the  grace  of  feeling  something 
of  Christ,  and,  most  particularly,  to  make  me  live  and 


GOD  AS   SUPREME  GOODNESS  1 23 

end  my  days  in  poverty,  for  which  latter  end — namely, 
that  I  might  have  the  liberty  of  poverty — I  went  to 
Rome  in  order  to  beseech  Blessed  Peter  himself  to 
obtain  for  me  this  grace,  which  he  did  ;  and,  through 
his  merits  and  those  of  Blessed  Francis,  and  through 
Divine  grace,  I  obtained,  in  an  unmistakable  way,  the 
gift  of  true  poverty),  I  arrived  at  that  part  of  the 
road  between  Spello  and  the  narrow  way  which 
ascends  to  Assisi,  and  in  that  place  the  following 
words  were  said  to  me  :  *  Thou  beseechest  My  servant 
Francis,  but  I  will  send  thee  another  messenger. 
And  I  am  the  Holy  Spirit,  who  come  to  thee  to  give 
thee  consolation  such  as  thou  hast  never  before 
tasted.  And  I  will  accompany  thee,  within  thee,  all 
the  way  to  the  Church  of  St.  Francis,  and  few  will 
think  whom  thou  hast  with  thee,  and  the  whole  of 
the  way  I  will  talk  with  thee  without  ceasing,  and 
thou  shalt  not  be  able  to  hear  aught  else  but  Me,  for 
I  have  bound  thee,  and  until  thou  comest  the  second 
time  to  the  Church  of  St.  Francis,  I  will  not  desert 
thee  if  thou  love  Me.'  And  in  order  to  provoke  me 
to  love  Him,  He  began  to  say  the  following  words  to 
me  :  *  My  daughter,  sweet  to  Me,  My  daughter.  My 
temple.  My  daughter,  My  delight,  love  Me\for  the  more 
thou  lovest  Me,  the  more  art  thou  loved  by  Me  !  ■  And 
He  said  to  me  most  frequently  :  '  Daughter  and  spouse,    I 


124  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

sweet  to  Me  ! '  And  he  added :  '  I  love  thee  more  than 
any  other  soul  in  the  Spoletan  valley.  Wherefore 
since  I  have  set  Myself  up  in  thee,  and  rested  in 
thee,  set  thyself  up  and  rest  in  Me.  I  was  with  the 
Apostles  and  they  saw  Me  with  their  corporal  eyes, 
but  they  felt  Me  not  as  thou  feelest  Me.  Moreover, 
after  thou  hast  returned  home,  I  shall  not  speak  to 
thee  as  I  do  now,  but  thou  shalt  feel  Me,  and  thou 
shalt  feel  such  sweetness  as  thou  hast  never  before 
experienced.  Thou  prayest  to  My  servant  Francis, 
hoping  to  obtain  through  him  that  which  thou 
desirest,  and,  because  My  servant  Francis  loved  Me 
much,  I  did  much  for  him,  and  if,  to-day,  there  were 
any  person  who  loved  Me  more  I  would  do  more 
for  him.'  He  said  moreover  that  there  were  few 
good  people  now  and  little  faith,  and  He  lamented, 
saying  :  '  So  great  is  the  love  which  I  bear  towards 
a  soul  who  loves  without  malice,  that,  were  there 
one  now  who  loved  Me  perfectly,  I  would  bestow 
upon  her  greater  grace  than  I  have  bestowed  in 
former  times  upon  the  saints  of  whom  are  related 
such  great  things  done  by  gracer\  And  no  one  can 
be  excused  from  this  love,  for  every  person  can  love 
God,  and  He  requires  from  the  soul  'naught  else  but 
to  love  Him,  and  He  truly  loved  the  soul,  and 
is  Himself  the  Love  of  the  soul.     And  these  words 


GOD  AS   SUPREME  GOODNESS  12$ 

are  very  profound.'  And  He  proved  to  me  that 
God  is  the  Love  of  the  soul^y  His  Advent  and 
His  Cross,  which  He  endured  for  us,  so  immense^ and 
glorious  was  His  Love !  And  He  explained  the 
Passion  to  me,  and  added  :  *  See  if  there  is  aught 
else  in  Me  but  love  ! '  And  my  soul  comprehended 
with  great  certainty  that  He  was  naught  else  but 
love.  And  He  lamented  that,  in  these  days  He  could 
find  so  few  persons  in  whom  He  could  place  His 
grace,  and  He  told  me  that,  if  He  could  find  any 
persons  loving  Him  now,  He  would  bestow  greater 
graces  upon  them  than  He  had  upon  the  saints  of 
former  times.  And  He  began  anew  to  me  :  *  My 
daughter,  sweet  to  Me,  love  Me,  for  thou  art  more 
greatly  loved  than  thou  lovest  Me.  ^My  beloved, 
love  Me  ;^mmense  is  My  love  for  the  soul  who  loves 
Me  without  malice.',  And  I  understood  that  He 
desired  the  soul  to  love  Him,  with  that  same  love 
with  which  He  loved  the  soul,--  according  to  her 
power  and  strength,  and  that,  according  to  herdesire^ 
so  would  He   fill   her  up.     Again  He  said  to  me  : 

*  My  beloved,  My  spouse,  love  Me,  all  that  thou 
doest  pleases  Me — when  thou  eatest^^  when  thou 
drinkest,  when  thou  sleepest — thy  whole  life  .^leases 
Me    completely,  if  thou  lovest   MeJ      And   again  : 

*  I    shall  do  great  things  in  thee  before  the  people, 


126  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

\  SO  that,  in  thee,  I  may  be  known  and  glorified 
and  made  famous,  and,  through  thee,  shall  My 
Name  be  praised  by  many  people.'  And  He  said 
many  other  things  to  me,  but  while  I  listened 
I  thought  of  my  defects  and  sins,  and  I  felt  that  I 
was  not  worthy  of  this  great  love.  And  1  began  to 
have  great  doubts  about  this  communication,  and 
I  said  to  Him  who  spoke  to  me :  *  If  thou  wert 
the  Holy  Spirit,  thou  wouldest  not  speak  thus  to 
me,  for  it  is  not  meet  nor  seemly,  because  I  am 
fragile  and  might  be  vain-glorious  on  account  of  Thy 
words.'  And~ne~repiied  to  me  :  *  See,  if,  from  these 
My  words,  thou  canst  be  vain-glorious  or  self  exalted, 
and  try,  by  turning  thy  thoughts  upon  other  things, 
to  rid  thyself  of  these  words.'  And  I  searched 
myself  to  see  whether  I  could  find  vain-glory,  and 
I  tried  to  prove  if  that  which  He  had  said  to  me 
were  true,  and  if  He  were  the  Holy  Spirit.  And  I 
looked  back  over  the  vineyard  to  find  some  distraction 
from  that  speech,  but  wheresoever  I  turned  my  eyes. 
He  said  to  me :  y^ow  see  and  contemplate,  this  is 
i  My  creature.'  /  And  I  felt  an  ineffable  sweetness,  but 
all  my  sins  and  defects  came  back  into  my  memory 
and  I  could  see  nothing  in  myself  but  sins  and  faults, 
and  I  felt  more  humility  than  I  had  ever  felt  before. 
And  He  told  me  also  how  greatly  beloved   I  was, 


GOD  AS  SUPREME  GOODNESS      ^  1 27 

and  how  the  Son  of  God  and  the  Virgin  Mary 
bent  down  towards  me,  and  came  to  me  to  speak 
to  me.  And  Christ  said  to  me :  'If  the  whole 
world  were  present  with  thee,  thou  couldst  not  any- 
more speak  with  them  than  thou  doest  now,  for, 
while  I  am  with  thee  the  whole  world  is  with  thee.' 
And  to  give  me  security  from  doubt,  He  said  :  *  I  am 
He  Who  was  crucified  for  thee,  and  Who,  for  thy  sake, 
hjun^red,  and -thirsted,  and  Who  loved  thee  so  much 
that  Ished_My_blood_  for  thee  ! '  And  He  related 
the  whole  Passion  to  me,  and  said  :J*  Pray  for  grace 
for  thyself  and  for  thy  companion  and  for  whom- 
soever thou  wilt,  and  be  prepared  to  receive,  for  I  am 
much  more  ready  to  give  than  thou  art  to  receive.'7 
Andmy  soul  cried  out,  saying :  '  I  will  not  pray,  for 
I  am  not  worthy  ! '  And  again  all  my  sins  came 
back  to  my  memory,  and  my  soul  said  :  '  If  thou 
who  hast  been  speaking  with  me  from  the  beginning 
wert  the  Holy  Spirit,  thou  wouldest  not  say  such 
great  things  to  me,  and,  moreover,  if  thou  wert 
within  me,  I  should  feel  such  great  joy,  that  I  could 
not  endure  it  and  live.'  And  He  replied  to  me  :r^an 
anything  be  except  according  to  My  Will  ?  I  do  not 
give  thee  other  joy,  neither  more  joy,  than  thou  hast,  v 
And  of  this  joy  I  have  given  less  to  others,  and  they,  I 
tell  thee,  have  lain  neither  seeing  nor  feeling  on  account 


128  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

of  it.  And  again,  1  give  thee  this  sign  that  I  Am. /Try 
now,  and  talk  to  thy  companions,  and  allow  thy 
mind  to  dwell  upon  various  things,  good  or  evil,  and 
thou  wilt  find  it  impossible  to  think  of  aught  else 
but  God,  and  thou  wilt  recognise  Me,'^r  it  is  I  alone 
who  ca-n  tind  the  mind  And  these  things  I  do  to 
thee,  not  because  of  thy  merits,  but  because  of  My 
Goodness.'  And  while  He  was  speaking  my  mind 
became  filled  with  the  memory  of  my  sins,  and  I  saw 
myself  to  be  more  clearly  worthy  of  Hell  than  I  had 
ever  done  before. 

And  He  made  known  to  me  that,  had  the  com- 
panions with  whom  I  was  journeying  been  different, 
the  aforesaid  things  would  not  have  befallen  me,  for 
all  the  time  that  I  was  experiencing  with  every 
Divine  word  such  great  sweetness  they  were  discuss- 
ing among  themselves  my  sickness.  And  I  felt  that 
if,  to  the  end  of  the  world,  there  were  to  be  no 
other  joy  than  the  joy  of  that  walk,  I  should  not 
have  wished  it  to  be  otherwise.  For  I  cannot  make 
known  the  greatness  of  this  sweetness  and  joy  of 
God,  particularly  when  He  said  :  '  I,  Who  enter  into 
thee,  am  the  Holy  Spirit ! '  and  likewise  with  all  else 
He  said  I  experienced  great  sweetness.  I  say,  then, 
He  came  with  me  to  the  Church  of  St.  Francis  as  He 
had    promised,   and    remained   till   after   meal-time, 


GOD  AS  SUPREME  GOODNESS  1 29 

when  I  went  for  the  second  time  to  the  church. 
And  when  I  entered  the  church,  as  I  genuflected, 
and  saw  St.  Francis  painted  on  the  bosom  of  Christ, 
Christ  said  to  me  :  *  It  is  thus  that  I  will  hold  thee 
close,  and  yea  much  more  closely  than  can  be 
presented  to  thy  bodily  eyes,  but  now  is  the  hour 
that  I  will  fill  thee  up  and  leave  thee,  my  sweet 
daughter,  my  temple,  my  delight,  (^or  I  tell  thee 
that,  for  this  consolation,  I  leave  thee,  but  if  thou 
lovest  Me,  I  leave  thee  not.'  y  And  bitter  as  this  word 
was,  I  felt  with  it  so  much  sweetness  that  it  was 
most  delightful.  And  then  I  looked  behind  me  that 
I  might  see  with  my  corporal  and  mental  vision, 
and  I  saw.  And  if  thou  askest  me  what  I  saw,  I 
saw  a  real  object,  full  of  majesty,  immense,  and  I 
cannot  say  how,  but  it  seemed  to  me  to  be  good. 
And  He  said  to  me  many  other  sweet  words,  and  / 
He  took  His  departure  most  peacefully,  withdrawing 
with  immense  sweetness,  not  suddenly,  but  by 
degrees.  Amongst  other  things  he  said  this  to  me  : 
*  My  daughter,  much  more  loved  by  Me  than  I  by 
thee,  my  beloved  lemple,  thou  hast  the  ring  of  M^ 
love,  thou  art  pledged  to  Me,  and  for  the  future  thou 
shalt  jiot  fall  away  from  Me,  and  thou  and  thy 
companion  have  the  blessing  of  the  Father  and  the 
Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost.'     And  forthwith  my  soul 

K 


130  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

cried  out :  *  Inasmuch  as  Thou  wilt  not  leave  me, 
shall  I  never  sin  again  mortally?  '  And  He  replied  : 
'That  I  say  not  to  thee.'  And  as  He  retired  I 
implored  grace  for  my  companion,  and  He  replied  to 
me  :  *  To  thy  companion  I  give  other  grace.' 

With  this,  therefore,  He  withdrew.  And  He 
desired  me  not  to  lie  down  as  He  departed,  but  to 
remain  standing.  Nevertheless,  after  His  departure 
I  fell  into  a  sitting  posture,  and  began  to  shout  with 
a  loud  voice  and  to  vociferate,  and  I  cried  without 
shame,  saying  these  words  :  '  Love,  till  now  I  knew 
Thee  not;  wherefore  dost  Thou  leave  me  thus?* 
And  I  could  say  no  more  and  could  only  cry,  for 
had  no  words  with  which  to  express  myself,  and  was 
limited  to  voice  and  tears,  and  thus  I  was  not  under- 
stood by  those  who  heard  me.  For  these  things 
befell  me  at  the  entrance  of  the  door  of  the  church 
of  St.  Francis,  where  I  sat  after  the  withdrawal  of 
God,  weeping  and  crying,  in  the  presence  of  all  the 
people  who  were  worshipping  there.  And  I  noticed 
my  own  companions,  standing  some  way  off  from 
me,  blushing,  for  they  believed  another  to  be  the 
cause  of  my  tears.  And  I  was  certain,  beyond  any 
doubt,  that  He  Who  had  spoken  with  me  was 
God,  and,  because  of  His  sweetness  and  my  grief, 
I  wept,  wishing  to  die,  and  I  grieved  because  He  had 


'^ 


GOD  AS   SUPREME  GOODNESS  I3I 

departed,  leaving  me  behind,  and  all  my  bones  were 
out  of  joint. 

After  this  I  left  Assisi,  and  I  proceeded  on  my 
journey  with  great  sweetness,  talking  of  God  as  I 
went.  And,  though  it  was  great  pain  to  me  to  be 
silent,  I  endeavoured  to  be  so  on  account  of  my 
companions.  And,  on  the  way  back  from  Assisi, 
Christ  said  to  me  :  *  I  give  thee  a  sign  that  I  am 
Christ,  Who  speak  with  thee,  and  Who  have  spoken 
with  thee.  J_j:ive  thee,  within^  the  Cross  and  ^he^ 
Love  of  God,  and  this  sign  shall  be  to  thee  for  ever." 
And  straightway  I  felt,  within,  that  Cross  and  the 
Love  of  God,  and  it  overflowed  into  my  body,  and 
that  Cross  I  felt  corporally,  my  soul  melting  in  the 
Love  of  God. 

After  I  had  returned  I  remained  in  my  house, 
and  I  felt  a  pacific  sweetness  and  quiet,  and  so  great 
delight  that  I  cannot  describe  them,  (^nd  I  had  a  very 
great  desire  to  die  and  leave  the  world,  so  that  I 
might  not  lose  that  sweetness  and  delight. ..  And  so 
great  was  my  desire  to  die,  that  life  to  me  was  a 
greater  grief  than  the  death  of  my  mother  and  of 
my  children,  and  greater  than  any  pain  that  I  can 
imagine.  And  for  eight  days  I  lay  in  my  house, 
wearied  on  account  of  the  aforesaid  things,  and 
I  cried  :    *  O    Lord,  have   pity  on  me  and   do   not 

K  2 


132  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

permit  me  to  remain  in  the  world  ! '  And,  besides 
these  things,  I  often  perceived  an  indescribable 
odour,  and  this  and  other  experiences  were  such  that 
I  cannot  tell  them,  for  the  words  with  which  I  have 
to  relate  are  poor.  And  such  love  and  sweetness  as 
I  felt  are  utterly  indescribable. 

Moreover,  the  aforesaid  experience  was  granted 
to  me  many  times,  but  not  with  so  much  sojourning, 
neither  with  so  much  love  nor  so  profoundly.  And 
after  I  had  come  from  Assisi,  and  was  lying  down  as 
I  said,  my  companion,  who  was  wonderful  for  her 
simplicity,  purity,  and  virginity,  heard  a  voice  say  to 
her  :  '  The  Holy  Spirit  is  in  this  cell.'  Then  she 
came  to  me  and  began  to  inquire,  saying  :  '  Tell  me 
what  thou  hast,  for  I  have  been  told  to  come  to 
thee.'  And  I  replied  :  '  As  thou  hast  been  told  thus, 
I  am  pleased.'  And  then  I  communicated  to  my 
companion  much  of  the  aforesaid  secret. 

CHAPTER    n 

VISION  IN  WHICH  SHE  SAW  GOD  INASMUCH  AS 
HE  IS  SUPREME  BEAUTY,  AFTER  WHICH  ALL 
CREATED   BEAUTY   BECAME   FILTHY   TO   HER 

Upon  a  certain  occasion,  when  I  was   in  prayer  and 
elevated  in  spirit,  God  spoke  to  me  words   full  of 


GOD  AS  SUPREME  BEAUTY  1 33 

love,  and  of  great  peace.  And,  looking  behind  me, 
I  saw  God  speaking  to  me ;  and  if  thou  askest  me 
what  I  saw,  I  say  that  I  saw  Himself,  and  otherwise 
I  know  not  how  to  say,  except  that  I  saw  a  Plenitude, 
aBrightness,  from  which  I  felt  an  indescribable 
jrepletion.  I  can  give  no  similitude  to  what  I  saw, 
and  I  saw  nothing^corpoiaL;  but  as  He  is  in  Heaven, 
so  was  He,  and  of  such  great  Beauty,  that  I  cannot 
say  anything  else,  but  that  I  saw  Supreme  Beauty, 
containing  all  Good.  And  all  the  Saints  stood  before 
that  most  beautiful  Majesty,  praising  Him  ;  and  it 
seemed  to  me  that  amongst  these  I  scarcely  had  a 
place. 

And  God  said  to  me  :  *  Most  loving  daughter, 
sweet  to  Me,  all  the  Saints  of  Paradise  have  for  thee 
a  special  love,  and  My  Mother  likewise,  and  thou  art 
united  to  Me  with  them.'  And,  notwithstanding  all 
the  things  that  had  been  told  me  about  His  Mother 
and  the  Saints,  all  that  I  had  heard  seemed  to  me 
to  be  poor  in  comparison  of  what  I  saw.  But,  so 
greatly  loved  was  I  in  Him  and  so  great  was  the 
sweetness  that  I  felt  from  Him,  that  I  cared  not  to 
look  at  the  Angels  nor  at  the  Saints.  For  I  saw  that  all 
their  comeliness  and  goodness  was  from  Him,  and  in 
Him,  and  that  He  Himself  was  All  and  Supreme  Good, 
and  all  Beauty,  and,  so  greatly  did  I  delight  in  His 


134  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

Beauty,  that  I  cared  not  to  look  at  any  other  creature. 
And  He  said  to  me  :  *  I  have  an  immense  love  for  thee, 
but  I  do  not  show  Myself  to  thee,  yea  rather  do  I 
hide  Myself  from  thee.'  And  my  soul  said  to  Him  : 
*  Wherefore  dost  Thou  love  me  so,  and  take  so  much 
delight  in  me,  when  I  am  so  filthy,  and  have  offended 
Thee  my  whole  life  long  ? '  Verily  He  replied  to  me  : 
rSo  great  is  the  love  that  I  have  reposed  in  thee,  that 
I  scarcely  remember  thy  defects,  although  Mine  eyes 
see  them ;  in  thee  have  I  reposed  great  treasure.' 
And  my  soul  felt  this  to  be  so  certainly  true  that  she 
doubted  in  nothing,  and  she  felt  and  saw  that  the 
Eyes  of  God  were  looking  at  her,  into  which  Eyes  she 
looked,  and  had  therein  so  great  delight  that  no  man 
could  describe  it,  yea  even  were  one  of  the  Saints 
of  Paradise  to  come  down  in  order  to  make  it 
manifest,  y^nd  therewith  He  told  me  that  He  had 
concealed  much  love  from  me  because  I  could  not 
bear  it. .  And  my  soul  replied :  'If  Thou  art  God 
Almighty,  Thou  canst  make  me  able  to  bear  it.' 
And  He  replied  :  '  If  I  were  to  do  so,  thou  wouldst 
have  all  that  thou  desirest,  and  thou  wouldst  no  longer 
hunger  for  Me.  Therefore  will  I  not  do  so,  for,  whilst 
thou  art  in  this  life,  it  is  even  My  Will  that  thou 
shouldst  hunger  for  Me,  and  desire  Me,  and  languish 
for  Me3 


GOD   AS   INVINCIBLE   OMNIPOTENCE  1 35 

CHAPTER    III 

VISION  IN  WHICH  SHE  SAW  GOD  INASMUCH  AS 
HE  IS  INVINCIBLE  OMNIPOTENCE,  FROM  WHICH 
VISION  SHE  OBTAINED  GRACE  AND  POWER  TO 
BE  PROFITABLE  TO  PERSONS  IN  THE  PRESENT 
AND   IN   THE  FUTURE 

Once  a  Divine  locution  was  made  to  me,  saying : 
*  I,  Who  speak  with  thee,  am  Divine  Power,  for  I 
bring  thee  a  Divine  grace ;  and  the  grace  which  I 
bring  thee  is  this  :XmLl  that  thou  be  of  profit  to  all 
men  who  shall  see  thee,  and  not  to  thern  alone^  but 


that  thou  help  and  be  of  profit  to  all  those  who 
shall  think  of  thee^  or  remember  thee,  or  hear  thee 
named^;  #-and  to  them  who  have  most  of  Me  thou 
sjialt  be 'of  greatest  profit'  And  then  my  soul, 
although  she  felt  great  joy,  said  :  *  I  desire  not  that 
grace,  for  I  fear  lest  it  injure  me,  and  that,  because  of 
it,  I  be  vainglorious.'  And  He  replied  at  once, 
saying  :  *  Thou  hast  nothing  to  do  with  it,  for  it  is  not  "^ 
thine  :  thou  art  only  the  guardian  of  it ;  use  it  well  and 
give  it  back  to  Him  Whose  it  is.'  And  my  soul 
understood  that  in  this  way  that  grace  could  not 
injure  her.  And  He  said  to  me :  'It  pleases  Me 
that  thou  hast  this  fear.' 


136  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

After  which,  in  church,  the  most  sweet  locution 
was  made  to  me,  which,  forthwith,  renewed  my  whole 
mind.  He  said  to  me  :  '  My  daughter,  sweet  to  Me,' 
(but  His  words  were  far  sweeter,)  '  no  creature  can 
give  thee  consolation  but  I  alone.  I  will  cover  thee 
with  My  Power/  And  straightway  the  eyes  of  my 
soul  were  opened  and  I  saw  a  Plenitude  of  God,  in 
which  I  comprehended  the  whole  world  on  this  side  of 
the  sea  and  beyond,  the  lakes  and  the  depths,  in  all 
of  which  I  saw  nothing  except  the  Divine  Power,  in 
an  utterly  indescribable  manner  ;  and  my  soul,  filled 
with  wonder,  exclaimed  saying  :  *  This  world  is  full 
of  God  ! '  And  I  comprehended  the  whole  world, 
almost  as  though  it  were  a  small  thing.  And  I  saw 
the  IJEower  of  God  exceeding  everything  and  filling 
everything  And  He  said  to  me  :  'I  have  shown  thee 
something  of  My  Power.'  (^nd  I  understood  iiLauch  a 
way  that  thereafter  I  was  able  better  to  understand 
other  thing^ 

And  He  said  to  me  :  *  Thou  hast^seen  something 
of  My;  Power  ;  ^ow  thou  mayest  see  My  Humility.' 
And  I  saw  God's  gr^gt  fvb^'^p^pint  tojnan,  and  His 
great  humility,  and  my  soul,  comprehending  the 
Divine  Power  and  seeing  such  profound  humility, 
was  filled  with  wonder,  and  counted  herself  to  be 
nothing,  and  saw  in  herself  nothing  but  pride.     And 


GOD  AS  SUPREME  WISDOM  1 37 

I  began  to  ponder  with  myself  and  to  repute  myself 
utterly  unworthy  ^^  rnmrnnniorij  to  such  a  degree 
that  I  did  not  want  to  communicate.  And  He  said 
to  me,  after  He  had  shown  me  His  Power  and 
Humility :  *  My  daughter,  no  creature  can  arrive  at 
the  point  of  seeing  to  which  thou  art  come,  except  he 
be  raised  by  a  special  Divine  grace.'  As,  therefore,  I 
wasjp  church,  closejjpon  the  Elevation  of  the  Body 
^fQirisl^He^saidjtQjIie  :  (^Behold  the  Power  is  now 
upon  the  Altar,  and  I  am  within  thee,  and  if  thou  re- 
ceive Me,  thou  receivest  Me  Whom  thou  hast  already 
received.---  Communicate,  therefore,  in  thejiame  of  the 
Father  and  of^he_SQlLand  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  And 
IjJNhg^SLXnjmnihyt  qiaJceJhee_worthj^.'  And  then 
there  remained  in  me  an  indescribable  sweetness 
and  a  great  joy,  which  my  whole  life  long  have  not 
failed  me. 

CHAPTER    IV 

VISION  IN  WHICH  SHE  SAW  GOD  INASMUCH  AS 
HE  IS  SUPREME  WISDOM,  FROM  WHICH  VISION 
SHE  LEARNED  TO  JUDGE  ALL  THINGS  WITH- 
OUT  ERROR 

On    one  occasion    I    was  requested  by  someone  to 
ask  certain  things  of  God  that  he  wished  to  know. 


138  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

And  I  doubted  in  myself  whether  I  should  do  so, 
for  it  seemed  to  me  that  it  was  pride  and  foolishness 
to  ask  such  things.  While  I  was  standing  with  such 
thoughts,  suddenly  my  mind  was  raised  and  was 
placed,  in  the  first  elevation,  at  a  table  without 
beginning  and  without  end.  And  I  was  not  placed 
so  as  to  see  this  table,  but  what  was  above  it.  And 
I  saw  an  indescribable  Plenitude  of  God,  of  which  I 
can  narrate  nothing,  neither  say  anything,  except 
that  what  I  saw  was  plainly  the  Plenitude  of  Divine 
Wisdom,  and  of  All  Good.  And  I  saw  that  Plenitude 
of  Divine  Wisdom,  and,  in  It,  I  saw  it  was  not  per- 
mitted to  seek  to  know  those  things  which  It 
will  do,  for  that  is  anticipating  and  dishonouring  It. 
And  therefore  when  I  see  persons  inquiring  into 
Divine  Wisdom,  I  see  and  understand  that  they  err. 
And,  from  what  I  saw  above  that  table,  clearly 
Divine  Wisdom,  there  remained  with  me  the  power 
of  understanding  and  judging  all  spiritual  persons 
and  spiritual  things,  when  I  hear  them  spoken  of  or 
narrated.  And  I  judge  not,  as  I  judged  formerly,  to 
err  and  sin,  but  I  judge  with  another  true  judgment 
by  which  I  understand,  and  by  which  I  have,  or  can 
have,  the  knowledge  of  having  sinned  in  my  former 
judgment.  And  I  know  not  how  to  relate  otherwise 
what  I  saw,  but  what  my  soul    brought  back  from 


GOD  AS  SUPREME  JUSTICE  1 39 

the  vision  to  put  into  words  was  clearly  the  table, 
and  my  being  placed  at  it  in  the  first  elevation.  But 
of  those  things,  in  order  to  see  which  I  was  placed  at 
that  table,  I  can  narrate  nothing  except  what  I  have 
said. 

CHAPTER  V 

VISION  AND  CONSOLATION  IN  WHICH  SHE  SAW 
GOD  INASMUCH  AS  HE  IS  SUPREME  JUSTICE, 
AND  MORE  ;  FROM  WHICH  VISION  SHE 
OBTAINED  APPROBATION  OF  DIVINE  JUDG- 
MENTS 

On  a  certain  occasion,  when  in  prayer,  I  asked  of 
God  (not  because  I  doubted,  but  because  I  wanted 
to  know  more  of  God),  saying  :  *  Wherefore,  O  Lord, 
didst  Thou  create  man,  and  wherefore,  after  Thou 
hadst  created  him,  didst  Thou  allow  him  to  sin? 
And  wherefore  didst  Thou  permit  so  great  a  Passion 
to  be  suffered  as  was  suffered  by  Thy  Son,  when 
Thou  couldst,  quite  as  well,  have  made  us  pleasing 
and  grateful  to  Thee,  and  have  given  us  as  much 
virtue  as  Thou  hast  now  done,  by  any  other  means  ?  * 
And  my  soul  comprehended,  without  any  doubt,  that 
wiiat  I  said — namely,  that  by  any  other  means  God  • 
could  have  wrought  our  virtue  and  salvation — was 


140  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

true.  And  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  was  forced  and 
urged  on  to  question  and  reflect  upon  the  aforesaid 
subject,  and,  as  I  was  in  prayer,  I  wished  to  persevere 
in  it  and  not  leave  off,  but  to  urge  God  upon  this 
subject.  And  I  passed  many  days,  asking  the  afore- 
said things,  doubting  in  nothing,  as  I  said  before. 
And  I  was  given  to  understand  that  God  did  these 
things  and  allowed  them,  so  that  His  goodness  might 
be  made  thereby  more  manifest  and  more  suitable 
to  us.  But  that  was  not  sufficient  to  make  me  fully 
understand  it,  for  I  still  understood,  most  certainly, 
and  knew  that  God  might  have  done  otherwise  had 
He  wished  to  save  us  in  any  other  way. 

Then  my  soul  was  elevated,  and  she  saw  that 
what  I  had  asked  had  no  beginning  and  no  end,  and, 
being  in  darkness,  she  wanted  to  return  to  herself, 
but  she  could  not  do  so.  And  she  wanted  to  proceed, 
but  could  not.  And  she  was  suddenly  completely 
lifted  up  and  illuminated,  and  she  saw  the  inexpres- 
sible Power  of  God,  and  the  Will,  and  Goodness  and 
Justice  of  God,  in  which  vision  she  fully  understood 
all  those  things  which  she  had  asked.  And  she  was 
drawn  out  of  her  previous  darkness  ;  for  I  had  been 
lying  upon  the  ground,  and,  during  that  great 
illumination,  I  stood  on  tiptoe.  And  I  felt  an  agility 
and  refreshment  of  body,  such  as  I  had  never  before  / 


GOD  AS  SUPREME  JUSTICE  141 

experienced.  And  LleltjnyselfJn  such  fulness  of/ 
charity,  and  I  understood  with  such  joy  in  that 
Power  and  Will, and  Justice^ of  God^  that  I  under- 
stood, not  only  those  things  about  which  I  had  asked, 
but  I  was  satisfied  as  to  the  saving  and  salvation 
offered  to  every  creature,  and  about  the  devils  and 
the  damned  and  all  things.  But  all  this  I  cannot 
explain  in  words,  for  it  is  utterly  beyond  nature. 

And  although  I  perfectly  understood  that,  had 
He  wished,  God  could  have  saved  us  in  another  way, 
yet  was  I  unable  to  see  that  He  could  have  done 
better  for  us,  considering  His  power  and  goodness, 
nor  that  He  could  better  have  expressed  the  same. 
/And  with  that  I  was  contented,  and  sure  that,  if  I 
knew  for  certain  that  I  was  damned,  I_could  not  T 
reasonably  grieve,  nor  labour  less,  nor  be  less  zealous  . 
in  prayer  or  for  the  honour  of  God,  §0  perfectly  did 
J  iinHpr«;i-anH  JJjs  justice.  And  there  was  left  a 
.peace  and  quiet  and  jsoMity  in  my  soul,  which  I 
never  remember  to  have  experienced  before  so  com- 
pletely, and  in  which  I  continually  rest. 

After  I  had  seen  the  f  ower  of  God  and  His  Will 
and  Justice,  I  was  raised  thence  higher,  and  then  I 
saw  neither  the  Power  nor  the  Will,  as  before,  but  I 
saw  a  stable  object,  utterly  indescribable  by  me, 
except  that  it^as  All  Good.     And  my  soul  was  in  an 


142  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

indescribable  joy.  And,  in  that  state,  I  saw,  not  love, 
but  that  utterly  indescribable  object.  (And  when 
I  issued  from  the  first  state  into  that  higher  indescrib- 
able state  I  know  not  whether  I  was  in  the  body  or 
out  of  it^  And  all  the  visions  I  had  before  did  not 
seem  to  me  to  be  so  great  as  these  states.  And  there 
remained  to  me,  from  them,  a  mortification  of  vices, 
and  a  security  for  virtue,  by  which  I  love  the  good 
and  well-doing,  and  even  the  evil  and  evil-doing,  for 
certainly  these  latter  no  longer  cause  me  displeasure. 
I  am  left,  therefore,  in  greatjgeace  and  with  a  venera- 
tion for  the  Divine  judgments,  so  that,  morning  and 
evening,  in  my  prayers  I  say  to  God  :  '  By  Thy  judg^ 
mentSj_0  Lord,  deliver  me,'  or,  *  By  Thy  judgment.  O 
Lord,  deliver_4ne.'  And  I  say  this  with  as  much  love 
and  confidence  as  I  say  :  '  By  Thy  Advent,  O  Lord, 
deliver  me ;  by  Thy  Nativity,  O  Lord,  deliver  me  ; 
by  Thy  Passion,  O  Lord,  deliver  me.'  For  I  do  not 
recognise  the  goodness  of  God  more  fully  in  the 
blessed  man,  or  in  the  holy  man,  or  in  many  good 
and  holy  men,  than  I  do  in  the  man  who  is  damned 
or  in  a  multitude  of  men  who  are  damned. 

But  jthat  (jepth_  was  never  shown  to  me  but 
ojnce^  but  I  never  forget  that  memory  nor  that  joy. 
And  if,  hy^njmpossibilityj  all  the  faithful  were  to 
fail,   there   would   remain    nevertheless    with   me   a 


ANGELA  TRANSFORMED  IN    LOVE  I43 

certitude  of  God  and  of  His  judgments  and  of  the 
justice  of  His  judgments!?  But  oh,  how  great  depth 
is  there  here  !  Nevertheless  all  things  come  back  to 
the  utility  of  the  good,  ^or  the  soul  who  has  this 
knowledge  of  the  Divine ,  judgments  and  of  these 
deaths,  will  have,  out  of  this  knowledge  of  God,  fruit 
from  all  thingg^ 

CHAPTER   VI 

VISION  AND  CONSOLATION  IN  WHICH  SHE  SAW 
GOD  INASMUCH  AS  HE  IS  LOVE  ;  FROM  WHICH 
VISION  SHE  WAS  TRANSFORMED  IN  DIVINE 
LOVE 

Once,  in  Lent,  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  was  very 
dry  and  without  devotion.  And  I  prayed  God  that 
He  would  give  me  of  Himself,  because  where  all 
good  was  concerned  I  was  very  dry  ;  and  then  the 
eyes  of  my  soul  were  opened,  and  1  saw  Love  coming 
towards  me,  and  I  saw  the  beginning  but  I  did  not  see 
the  end,  only  Its  continuation.  And  I  know  not  any 
similitude  for  Its  colour.  And  immediately,  when 
Love  had  reached  me.  the  eyes  of  my  soul  werej^E^^d 
and  I  saw  much  more  of  these  thing§_lhan  I  could 
have  seen  with  the  eyes  of  the  body.  C'And  Love 
came   towards  me,  as  it  were,  like  a  scythe.     This 


144  CATHOLIC  MYSTICISM 

similitude  is  not  to  be  taken  as  regards  measurable 

quantity,   but   Love   was   like^  a .  scythe,  in,  that    It 

appeared  an^dwjthdrew.  and  It  had  not  conferred,  in  Its 

withdrawal,  as  much  as  It  had  seemed  to  promise^  And 

I  was  straightway  .fiJledLwJthlovg  and  an  inestimable 

satiety,  which  although  it  sated  me  generated  in  me  a 

great  hunger,  so  inestimable  that  all  my  members  were 

out  of  joint  andmy  soul  languished  ajid  desired  tgaXz, 

tairrtothej£sidiie.     And  I  desired  not  to  see  nor  feel 

nor  hear  any  other  creature,  and  I  spoke  not.  (^But  my 

soul  spoke  within  me,  imploring  Love  not  to  make  her 

languish  through  so  great  lov^Qor  I  reckoned  life  to 

be  deatli^    And  she  invoked  first  the  Blessed  Virgin 

land  then  the  Apostles,  whom  she  implored  to  go  with 

^j-^"^   her  to  the  Most  High,  and  make  known  to  Him  that 

<o  ^  ^  He  must  not  allow  her  to  suffer  this  death  completely, 

^vv-*^  *      but  permit  her  to  arrive  at  Him  whom  she  felt.     And 

^he  implored  Blessed  Francis  likewise  and  the  Evan- 

'elistsX  fJl^oiTLti^ 

I       And  when,  on  account  of  the  approach  "to  me 

which  I  felt,  I  believed  myself  to  be  all  love,  I  said  : 

(3,Many  there  are  who  think  that  they  dwell  in  love 

and  they  are  in   hate,  and,    contrariwise,  there    are 

(iW^       ,   many  who  believe  themselves  to  be  in  hate  and  are 

^c*^^'"^       really  in  love^  And    my  soul   asked    to   see   most 

certainly,  and  God   granted  my  request,  and  I  felt  it 


t 


ANGELA   TRANSFORMED   IN    LOVE 


145 


clearly,  so  that  I  was  quite  contented.  And  so  filled 
am  I  with  that  love  that  I  do  not  think  that  I  could 
ever  again  be  without  it,  and  were  any  creature  to 
tell  me  otherwise  I  could  not  believe  them,  and  were 
an  angel  to  do  so  I  should  not  believe  him,  but  should 
reply  to  him :  '  Thou  art  he  who  fell  from  Heaven.' 

And  I  saw  in  myself  two  divisions,  as  if  a  road\ 
had  been  made  in  me  ;  and  in  one  division  I  saw 
love  and  every  good  which  was  God's  and  not  mine, 
and  in  the  other  I  saw  myself,  dry,  and  I  saw  I  had 
nothing  good  belonging  to  me.  And  in  that  way  I 
saw  that  it  was  not  I  who  loved,  however  much  I 
might  see  myself  to  be  in  love,  but  that  the  love  was 
God's  alone,  with  which  He  reunited  Himself,  and 
then  conferred  more  and  more  ardent  love  than 
before ;  (and  I  had  a  great  desire  to  become  one  with 
this  Fov^  And  between  the  aforesaid  love,  which  is 
so  great  that  I  knew  not  that  greater  love  could 
be  (except  when  that  love  which  showed  itself  in 
death  supervened),  and  the  other  mortal  love  and 
eJCtreme-ardour,  therg^is  a  rerfain  mpHinrr)j  of  which 
I  can  narrate  nothing,  on  account  of  its  many 
j;]ppthq,  its  great  joys  and  delights.  And  I  cannot 
bear  to  hear  of  the  Passion,  nor  can  I  hear  the  name 
of  God,  for  when  I  hear  His  name,  I  feel  Him,  with 
so  great  love,  that  T  long  to  he  rnirifipH   for 


146  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

sake,  and  anything  less  is,  as  it  were,  an  i|npediment 
ito  me.     And  it  seems  to  me  that  nothing  has  been 
said  in  the  Gospel  or  in  the  Life  of  Christ,  or  in  any 
other  locution  of  God,  but  that  I  have  seen  greater 
and  more  incomparable  things  in  God.     And,  after 
that  vision  of  love,   I   remain   completely  happy  and 
in  an  angelical  state,  so  that  I  love  toads,  buffoons, 
and  even  devils.     And,  \\Lhen  ^  am  in  that  state,  were 
jdogs  to  eat  rgo^  I  should_jiot  care,  and  it  does  not 
^eem  to  me  as  if  I  could  suffer  any  pain,  either  which 
s,  or  which  has  been  recorded,  or  which  is  in  the 
olorous  memories  of  the  Passion   of  Christ,  or  in 
is  state  of  tears. 
And  this  state  is  greater  than  that  of  standing  at 
the  foot  of  the  Cross  by  continual  recollection,  as  did 
the    Blessed    Francis,    although    my  soul  frequently 
sees  one  or  another  degree  of  the  Passion,  and  desires 
to  see  that  Flesh,  dead  for  us  ;  hut  in  this  state  jslov^e- 
with  great  joy,  without  the  dolour  of  the  Passion. 
Once,  nevertheless,  was  united  as  it  were  with  this 
love  the  inestimable  memory  of  the  price,  namely  of 
the  PjjeciousJBlooi  by  which  indulgence  is  given  to 
the  world,  and  I  marvelled,  as  it  were,  how   these 
things  could  be  ;  but,  with  all  this,  there  was  none  of 
the  dolour  of  the  Passion.     But  the  Passion  is  the 
way  and  the  example  which  I  must  take.  - 


GOD   AS   THREE    PERSONS  1 47 


CHAPTER   VII 

VISION  AND  CONSOLATION  IN  WHICH  SHE  SAW 
GOD  INASMUCH  AS  HE  IS  THREE  PERSONS  IN 
ONE  ;  WHICH  VISION  SHE  SAW  WITH  DARKNESS 
JRTTT_F1^0M  WHICH  SHE  OBTAINED  A  PERFECT 
AND   HOLY   HOPE  WITIi  EVERY  CERTAINTY^ 

On  a  certain  occasion  my  soul  was  rapt,  and  I  saw 
God  with  greater  clearness  and  fulness  than  I  had 
ever  done  before.  (^And  in  that  elevation  I  saw  not 
love,  and  I  lost  that  love  which  I  previously  bore,  and 
I  became  not  lov^  And  then  I  saw  Him  in  a  dark- 
ness, and  this  because  he  is  Great  Good,  who  ^nnot 
bejrjaagifted  neitherjuidersto^  and  were  all  things 
possibl^^o  be  imagined  or  understood,  _they  would 
not  attain.  t^^Jthat_J^nod.  And  then  my  soul  was 
given  a  certain  faith,  a  sure  and  firm  hope  and  a 
continual  security  in  God,  which  took  away  all  fear. 
/And,  in  that  Goodness,  which  was  shown  thus  in  dark- 
ness, I  recollected  myself  completely,  and  I  was 
made  so  secure  in  God  that  I  can  never  doubt  this, 
namely,  that  most  certainly  I  have  God  ;  and  in  that 
most  efficacious  Good,  seen  in  darkness,  my  hope 
is  now  quite  recollected  and  secure/7  I  see  God 
frequently   in    this    way  and   in    this   Good,   which 


148  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

cannot  be  outwardly  narrated,  and,  indeed,  cannot  be 
imagined  in  the  heart.  In  that  most  certain  and 
inclusive  Good,  I  say,  which  I  comprehend  with  so 
much  darkness,  I  have  all  my  hope,  and  in  seeing 
that  which  I  want  to  have  I  have  all  things, 
and  in  seeing  what  I  want  to  know  I  know  all 
things,  and  therein  I  see  all  good.  Nor  is  the  soul  in 
her  vision  able  to  think  of  the  departure  of  that  Good, 
or  of  her  departure  from  it,  nor  that  she  should  ever 
be  obliged  to  depart  from  it,  but  she  delights  ineffably 
in  that  good  which  is  every  good,  and  yet  the  soul 
sees  nothing  whatever  that  can  be  narrated  by  the 
tongue  nor  even  conceived  by  the  heart,  and  yet  she 
sees,  at  the  same  time,  absolutely  everything  ;  and  that 
Good  is  the  more  certain,  and  the  more  exceeding 
all  others,  that  it  comes  with  darkness  and  is  most, 
secret,  and  I  afterwards  see  in  that  darkness  that  it 
exceeds  every  good  and  all  things  that  are ;  the  dark- 
ness itself  is  other  than  it,  and  everything  that  can  be 
thought  of  falls  short  of  it.  For  indeed  the  visions  of 
Divine  Wisdom  and  of  Divine  Will  and  of  Divine 
Power,  which  the  soul  had,  so  wonderfully  and  inde- 
scribably, upon  other  occasions,  were  not  so  great  as 
this  vision  of  most  certain  Good.  For  that  Good 
which  I  see  is  complete,  and  the  other  things  are  a 
part.     And  the  vision  of  the  other  things,  although 


GOD   AS   THREE   PERSONS  I49 

they  are  indescribable,  brings  a  great  and  overflowing 
joy  to  the  body,  but  when  God  is  seen  thus,  in  dark- 
ness, the  vision  brings  not  laughter  to  the  lips,  nor 
fervour  and  devotion  to  the  heart,  neither  fervent  love. 
For  the  body  trembles  not,  and  is  not  moved  nor 
changed,  as  in  the  other  visions,  and  it  sees  nothing. 
The  soul  alone  sees,  and  the  body  is  quiet  and  sleeps, 
and  the  tongue  is  as  it  were  cut  off,  for  it  can  say 
nothing.  And  so  much  less  to  me  than  that  Good, 
which  I  see  so  darkly,  are  all  my  friendships,  of  which 
God  has  given  me  many  and  ineffable  ones,  and  every 
sweet  word  and  all  the  other  things  which  He  has  given 
me,  that  I  place  no  hope  in  them,  and  were  it  possible 
that  they  were  all  unreal,  my  hope  would  not  diminish 
on  that  account,  because  of  the  certainty  of  the  hope 
which  I  have  in  that  All-Good  which  I  see  so  darkly. 
And  my  mind  was  elevated  three  times,  so  as  to 
see  God  in  this  higher  and  ineffable  way  with  much 
darkness  and  marvellous  grace  of  vision,  and,  though ! 
I  may  have  seen  that  All-Good  many  and  innumer- 
able times  as  well,  and  with  darkness  too,  it  was  only 
three  times,  as  I  said,  that  I  saw  Him  in  the  aforesaid 
highest  way,  with  so  much  darkness.  And  when, 
on  the  one  side,  my  body  is  shattered  by  its  infirmi- 
ties, and  the  world  drives  me  forth  with  its  thorns 
and  bitternesses,  and  the  devils  afflict  me  with  many 


150  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

temptations  and  infest  me  with  almost  continual 
persecutions,  God  having  given  them  power  to  afflict 
me,  having  placed  my  soul  in  their  hands  (so  that 
indeed  I  see  them  almost  corporally  against  me), 
then,  from  the  other,  the  real  side,  God  draws  me 
to  Himself,  to  that  Good  which  I  seejn_darkness,  for  I 
see  the  Holy  Trinity  in  darkness,  and  in  the  midst 
of  this  Trinity,  which  I  see  so  darkly,  it  seems  as 
if  I  were  standing  and  resting.  And  it  draws  me 
more  than  any  other  thing  which  I  have  experi- 
enced, and  more  than  any  other  good  I  have  seen. 
For  this  vision  cannot  be  compared  with  any  others. 
And  so  greatly  does  that  Good  which  I  see 
exceed  any  words  which  I  can  use,  that  all  I  say  of 
it  seems  to  be  nothing,  yea  it  seems  as  if  I  spoke 
wrongly,  or  were  blaspheming,  in  saying  anything  at 
all  about  it.  For,  in  that  vision  of  Good,  I  remember 
not  Christ's  humanity  nor  God  as  man  nor  anything 
which  has  form,  and  yet,  notwithstanding  that  I  see 
all  things,  I  see  nothing.  It  is  true  that,  when  the 
aforesaid  separation  of  my  soul  to  that  Good  takes 
place,  I  see  God-Man,  and,  with  great  meekness.  He 
draws  my  soul  to  Himself,  saying  now  -and  again  : 
'  Thou  art  I,  and  I  am  Thou.'  And  I  see  those  eyes 
and  that  face  and  they  are  most  pacifying,  and  they 
encompass   my   soul   and   draw   her   to    Him   with 


GOD  AS   THREE  PERSONS  151 

immense  cunning.  And  the  aforesaid  Good,  that  I 
see  with  darkness,  proceeds  from  the  vision  of  those 
eyes  and  of  that  face  and  emanates  from  within,  and 
it  is  that  Good  which  delights  me  so  much  and  so 
indescribably.  And  my  soul,  dwelling  in  this  God- 
Man  is  alive,  and  I  dwell  much  in  Him,  and  more 
continually  than  in  that  Good  of  which  I  have  the 
vision  with  darkness.  But  it  is  the  latter  which 
draws  my  soul  the  most  strongly  without  any  com- 
parison. But,  in  this  vision  of  the  God-Man  I  dwell 
almost  constantly,  and  once  God  gave  me  a  surety 
that  there  was  nothing  separating  Him  and  me,  and 
that  continual  joy  in  the  Humanity  has  remained  with 
me  day  and  night  from  that  time.  And  I  long  always 
to  sing  and  to  praise  God,  and  I  say :  *  I  praise  Thee, 
O  Lord  of  Love,  in  the  Cross  I  have  made  my  bed.' 
And  for  head  coverings  and  for  soft  feathers  have  I 
found  poverty,  and  my  means  of  rest  are  pain  and 
contempt.  And  in  the  aforesaid  bed  He  Himself 
was  born,  brought  up,  and  died.  And  God  the 
Father  so  loved  this  company — namely,  poverty,  con- 
tempt, and  pain — that  He  gave  it  to  His  Son,  and,  in 
this  bed  the  Son  was  v/illing  to  lie  continually,  and 
He  always  loved  and  agreed  with  the  Father.  And 
in  this  bed  I  found  rest  and  quiet,  and  in  it  I  hope 
to  die,  and  by  it  I   believe  I   shall  be  saved.     And 


152  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

the  joy  which  I  expect  to  receive  from  those  hands 
and  from  those  feet  is  indescribable,  for,  when  I  see 
Him,  I  long  never  to  be  separated  from  Him,  but  to 
go  completely  to  Him,  and  in  living,  therefore,  I  die. 
And  when  I  think  of  Him  I  cannot  speak,  for  my 
tongue  is  as  it  were  cut  out.  And  if  I  cease  from 
my  thought  of  Him,  then  the  world  and  everything 
about  me  drives  me  to  greater  longing.  And  this 
my  desire,  through  the  weariness  of  expectation,  is 
mortal  pain  to  me.  And  in  these  visions  and  con- 
solations my  soul  was  most  frequently  elevated  and 
consoled  by  the  most  sweet  God,  to  Whom  be  glory 
and  honour  for  ever  and  ever.  Amen. 


CHAPTER   VHI 

VISION  AND  CONSOLATION  IN  WHICH  SHE  SAW 
GOD  IN  THE  MOST  PERFECT  VISION  POSSIBLE 
IN  THIS  LIFE  ;  FROM  WHICH  VISION  SHE 
OBTAINED     A     FIRMNESS     IN     GOOD     PURPOSE, 


^^D  A  PERFECT_LOVE  FOR  GOD. 


Following  upon  the  aforesaid  things,  I  was  rapt 
in  spirit,  and  I  found  myself  in  God  completely,  in 
such  a  way  as  I  had  never  before  experienced,  and 
it  seemed  to  me  that  I    was    in   the   midst   of  the 


MOST   PERFECT  VISION   POSSIBLE  1 53 

Trinity,  in  a  higher  and  greater  degree  than  I  had  ) 
ever  before  been,  and  I  felt  that  I  was  receiving 
greater  good  than  I  was  wont  to  do,  and  that  I 
remained  continually  in  this  good,  and  that  I  was 
filled  with  delights  and  inexpressible  love.  And 
these  things  utterly  surpassed  all  my  former  experi- 
ences. And  divine  operations  went  on  in  my  soul 
which  were  so  ineffable  that  neither  angel  nor  saint 
could  relate  or  explain  them,  ^^nd  I  know  that  no 
angel  nor  any  other  creature  is  capable  of  under- 
standing those  operations  and  that  most  profound 
ahyss.l  And  when  I  speak  of  them  it  seems  to  me  as 
if  I  were  speaking  evilly  or  blaspheming.  And  I  am 
drawn  forth  out  of  those  things  which  I  formerly 
experienced,  and  in  which  I  so  greatly  delighted, 
namely  the  Life  and  the  Humanity  of  Christ,  and 
from  the  consideration  of  that  most  mysterious 
society  so  pleasing  to  God  from  all  eternity  which  He 
enjoyed  with  His  Son,  and  from  the  consideration 
of  the  poverty,  the  pain,  and  the  contempt  borne  by 
the  living  Son  of  God,  which  consideration  used  to 
be  my  resting  place  and  my  bed.  And  I  am  as  it 
were  drawn  beyond  that  way  of  seeing  God  in  dark- 
ness which  used  so  greatly  to  delight  me.  And  out 
of  all  those  previous  states  I  have  been  drawn  so 
gently  and  so  quietly,  that,  except  by  remembering 


154  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

that  I  was  no  longer  in  them,  I  had  no  perception 
of  leaving  them. 

And  in  those  ineffable  benefits  and  divine  opera- 
tions, which  are  brought  about  as  aforesaid  in  my 
soul,  God  at  first  presents  Himself  to  the  soul  work- 
ing ineffable  divine  operations  ;  and  He  afterwards 
proceeds  to  make  Himself  manifest  to  her,  revealing 
Himself  to  her,  and  giving  her  greater  gifts  with 
greater  certitude  and  ineffable  clearness.  And  He 
presents  Himself  to  the  soul  in  two  ways,  at  first :  by 
the  first  way  He  is  presented  intimately  to  my  soul, 
and  when  I  understand  Him  to  be  present,  I  then 
understand  how  He  is  present  in  all  nature,  how 
in. all  things  He  has  being — in  the  Devil,  in  the 
good  angel,  in  Paradise,  in  Hell,  in  the  adulterer, 
in  the  murderer,  in  every  good  work,  and  in  every- 
thing having  being,  in  some  way  or  another,  in  fair 
things  as  well  as  filthy.  Wherefore,  when  I  experi- 
ence this  truth,  I  do  not  take  more  pleasure  in 
the  contemplation  of  a  good  angel  or  of  a  good  work 
than  in  the  contemplation  of  a  bad  angel  or  of  a  bad 
work.  jA.nd  God  presents  Himself  most  assiduously 
to  my  soul  in  the  aforesaid  way,  and  when  He  does 
so.  He  does  it  with  great  illumination  and  truth  and 
divine  grace.  So  that  the  soul,  seeing  Him  thus,  can 
in   no   way   offend^    And    this   illumination    brings 


MOST   PERFECT  VISION    POSSIBLE  1 55 

much  good  into  the  soul,  and  she,  understanding  God 
to  be  present,  is  humiliated  and  confused  on  accounts 
of  her  sins,  whereby  she  receives  great  weight  ^f 
wisdom,  and  much  divine  consolation  and  great  joy. 
And  He  presents  Himself  in  another  way,  more  spe- 
cially and  very  differently,  and  in  doing  so  He  be- 
stows other  joys  upon  the  soul  than  the  aforesaid,  and 
gathers  her  up  completely  into  Himself  and  brings 
about  many  divine  operations  in  her,  with  greater 
graces  than  in  the  first  way,  and  with  indescribable 
,aby«&- of  delights  and  illuminations,  so  that  that 
Presence  of  God  in  the  soul  alone,  without  any  other 
gift,  is  that  which  the  Saints  have  in  Everlasting  Life. 
It  is  true  that,  of  those  gifts  which  the  Saints  have  in 
Everlasting  Life,  some  have  more  and  some  have 
less.  1  Of  which  gifts,  moreover,  I  am  not  worthy  to 
speak,  for,  in  so  doing.  I  blaspheme  more  than  injiot 
mentioning  them  at  all.  But  I  say  that  among  the 
Saints  there  are  different  expansions  of  soul,  so  that 
some  have  greater  capabilities  of  receiving  and 
partaking  of  God.  And  it  is  likewise  with  the  soul. 
When  God  presents  Himself  to  the  soul,  manifesting 
and  revealing  Himself  to  her,  He  expands  her  and 
gives  her  gifts  and  sweets  in  a  way  that  He  had  never 
before  done.  And  then  is  my  soul  drawn  out  of 
darkness,  and  a  greater  knowledge  of  God  is  wrought 


156  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

in  her  more  clearly  than  I  could  have  thought  possible. 
And  these  things  are  brought  about  with  so  much 
clearness,  sweetness, and  certitude, and  with  such  depth,/ 
that  no  heart  could  comprehend  them.  Wherefore] 
neither  can  the  heart  understand  anything  of  it,  nor  even 
form  any  thoughts  concerning  it,  except  in  so  far  as 
is  granted_to  the  soul  by  God  to  rise  to  that  to  which 
the  heart,  of  itself,  can  never  attain.  Therefore  it  is 
not  possible  to  say  anything  at  all  about  it,  nor  can 
any  words  be  found  to  express  it,  nor  can  thought  or 
intellect  attain  to  it,  so  greatly  does  it  exceed  all 
i  other  things. 

And  although  the  Divine   Scripture  is   so  high 
that  no  man  in  the  world  is  wise  enough  to  under- 
stand it  completely,  even  though  he  were  to  possess 
,  all  the  wisdom  possible  in  this  state,  so  greatly  does 
the  Scripture  surpass  his  intellect,  yet,  nevertheless, 
.       he  babbles  something  of  it.     But  of  these  ineffable 
0-;'  divine  operations  of  the  manifestation  of  God  in  the 
^    .pcr^'soul  not  one  word  can  be  spoken,  and  of  them  no 
man  can  babble.     And   because   my  soul  has  been 
frequently  raised  into  the  Divine  secret  I  understand 
this  thing  :  namely,  how  holy  and  divine  Scripture  is, 
at  the  same  time  easy  and  difficult,  how  it  seems  to 
assert  and  to  contradict,  and  how  it  is  of  no  service 
to  those  who,  not  observing  it,  are  damned  out  of  it, 


MOST   PERFECT  VISION    POSSIBLE  1 57 

and  how,  contrariwise,  it  is  fulfilled  in  those  persons   ''^"^  ^   ^ 

who,   observing  it,  are  saved  out  of  it  y  And  these 

words  which  I  speak,  returning   from  the  secret  of  ^^^'^\ 

God,  I  speak  securely,  being  over  and  above  know-  ^^-^^^ 

ledge,  but   they  are  outside   those   ineffable  divine 

operations,  in  no  way  coming  near  them — yea,  my 

speaking  of  them  is  even  as  it  were  a  blasphemy  and 

devastation.     For,  were  all  divine  consolations  and 

pleasures  and  all  spiritual  joys  which  ever  were,  and 

were  all  the  Saints,  from  the  beginning  of  the  world, 

to  expound  assiduously  of  God,  and  were  all  worldly 

delights,  good  and  bad,  which  ever  were,  to  be  changed 

into  good  and  spiritual  ones,  and  to  go  on  with  me       '  />»  y  ^ 

to  perfection  and  to  lead  me  to  that  indescribable  good 

of  Divine  manifestation,  I  would  not,  I  say,  for  all 

these  things,  exchange  the  delight  which  I  experience 

in  that  indescribable  manifestation  of  God  which  is 

as  swift  as  the  opening  and  shutting  of  an  eye.     And    f 

I  tell  thee  this  that  thou  mayest,  in  some  measure, 

have  in  thy  heart  that  good  which  I  have,  and  which 

infinitely  surpasses  all  the   aforesaid   things.     And 

this  delight  of  which  I  speak  I  experience  not  only 

for  the  space  of  the  opening  and  the  shutting  of  an 

eye,  but  I  have  it  oftentimes  for  a  longer  time,  and 

most  efficaciously.     And  in  the  former  way  I  have 

it  almost  continually,  but  not  so  efficaciously. 


158  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

And  although  I  can  experience  sadness  and  joy 
exteriorly,  I  cannot  interiorily ;  for  in  my  soul  is  a 
room  into  which  no  joy  nor  sadness,  nor  pleasure  of 
any  kind,  neither  virtue  nor  anything  else,  can  enter. 
But  into  that  room  enters  that  All-Good.  And  in 
that  manifestation  of  God  (although  I  blaspheme  in 
mentioning  Christ  in  this  way,  for  I  cannot  perfectly 
name  Him  otherwise)  is  All  Truth.  And  in  Him  I 
understand  and  have  the  whole  truth  which  is  in 
Heaven  and  in  Hell  and  on  earth  and  in  every 
creature,  with  so  much  truth  and  certitude,  that  in 
no  way,  were  the  whole  world  to  say  the  opposite, 
could  I  believe  otherwise,  yea,  I  should  ridicule  them 
who  were  to  say  it. 

For  I  see  Him  Who  is  Essence,  and  I  see  how  He 
is  the  Essence  of  all  creatures.  And  I  see  how  He 
made  me  more  capable  of  understanding  the  aforesaid 
better  way  than  I  was  before,  when  I  saw  with  that 
darkness  which  used  formerly  so  greatly  to  delight 
me.  And  I  see  myself  alone  with  God,  all  Purity, 
all  Holiness,  all  Truth,  all  Rectitude,  all  Certitude, 
and  in  Him  all  Heavenliness.  And  when  I  am  in 
this  state  I  remember  nothing  else.  And  sometimes, 
when  I  was  in  this  state,  God  said  to  me :  *  Daughter 
of  Divine  Wisdom,  temple  of  delights,  delight  of  de- 
lights, and  daughter  of  peace,  in  thee  rests  the  whole 


MOST   PERFECT  VISION    POSSIBLE  1 59 

Trinity,  the  whole  Truth,  so  that  thou  holdest  Me 
and  I  hold  thee.'  And  one  of  the  works  which  Godj 
Himself  wrought  in  my  soul  is  a  power  of  compreJ 
hending,  with  great  capacity  and  great  delight,  how  it 
is  that  God  comes  into  the  Sacrament  of  the  Altar 
with  that  great  and  noble  union.  It  is  true,  when  I 
am  out  of  this  greatest  state  I  see  myself  to  be  all  sin 
and  obedient  to  sin,  dark  and  impure,  entirely  false  and 
full  of  error.  But  I  am  quiet,  and  there  remains  continu- 
ally with  me  a  Divine  unction,  which  is  a  supreme 
unction,  and  which  I  may  have  at  all  times  of  the  day. 
In  the  aforesaid  state,  in  truth,  I  am  not  per- 
fected, but  I  am  led  by  God  and  raised,  although  I 
know  not  how  to  will  it,  nor  desire  it,  nor  pray  for  it, 
and  I  am  now  almost  continually  in  it,  and  often- 
times is  my  soul  raised  to  God  without  my  consent 
being  required  ;  for,  while  I  neither  hope  for  nor 
imagine  anything  of  the  kind,  suddenly  my  soul  is 
raised  to  God  and  the  Lord.  And  I  understand  the 
whole  world,  and  I  seem  not  to  be  on  the  earth,  but 
to  be  in  Heaven  with  God.  And  this  most  excellent 
state,  in  which  I  am  now,  is  above  my  former  states. 
For  it  has  such  completeness  and  clearness  and 
certitude  and  nobility  and  dilation,  that  I  do  not  feel 
any  other  state  to  come  near  it.  And  I  have  ex- 
perienced  this   manifestation   of  God  more  than  a 


l6o  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

thousand  times,  each  time  in  a  new  and  different 
way.  And  once,  on  the  Feast  of  Holy  Mary  at 
Candlemas,  I  experienced  that  indescribable  manifes- 
tation of  God,  and  He  worked  in  my  soul  in  such  a 
way  that  a  representation  was  made  to  my  soul  of 
herself  And  I  saw  her  to  have  such  nobility  and 
height  that  I  could  not  have  believed  possible  of  her, 
or,  indeed,  of  any  of  the  souls  in  Paradise,  and  at  that 
time  my  soul  could  not  understand  herself  Where- 
fore if  the  soul,  who  is  created  finite  and  limited,  can- 
not understand  herself,  how  much  less  can  she  under- 
stand her  Creator,  immense,  infinite,  and  unlimited  ? 
Wherefore  my  soul  then  presented  herself  to  God 
with  the  greatest  security,  so  much  so  that  she  had 
no  fear.  She  presented  herself  to  God  with  greater 
delight  than  I  had  before  experienced,  and  with  a 
new  and  most  excellent  joy,  and  with  so  much  new 
wonder  and  light  that  I  could  never  have  imagined 
there  to  be  such  in  my  soul.  And  in  that  encounter 
which  I  had  at  that  time  with  God,  when  I  understood 
the  aforesaid  indescribable  manifestation  of  God, 
some  words  were  said  to  me  by  the  Most  High  God 
which  I  do  not  wish  to  be  written.  And  these 
remained  with  the  soul  when  she  returned  to  herself, 
and  she  found  them  within  her,  so  that  she  was 
pleased  to  bear  every  pain  and  injury  for  God,  and 


DIVINE  ASSURANCE  l6l 

they  prevented  her  from  ever  being  able  to  separate 
herself  from  God  again,  for  anything  which  could  be 
said  or   done.     Wherefore   my   soul   cried  out  and 
said :  *  Oh,  sweet   Lord,  what  is  there  which  could 
separate  me  from  Thee  ? '     And  I  understood  that  I   ' 
was  told  that,  His  grace  mediating,  nothing  could 
ever  separate  me  from  God  again.     And  I  heard  all  \ 
the  aforesaid  things  told  me  by  God,  in  a  much  more    ^ 
wonderful  way  than  I  can  relate  them.     Moreover,  I 
was  told  that  the  aforesaid  ineffable  manifestation  of 
God  is  that  good  which  the  saints  enjoy  in  eternal 
life.     And  that  Good  is  not  other  than  the  aforesaid, 
but   there  it  is  experienced   in  a  different  way,  so 
that  the  least  saint  in  eternal  life,  who  possesses  least, 
has  more  than  can  be  given  to  any  soul  in  this  life 
before  the  death  of  the  body.     And  I  relate  what  my 
soul  understood  of  these  things  in  that  indescribable 
manifestation  of  God. 

CHAPTER   IX 

VISION  IN  WHICH  SHE  WAS  ASSURED  THAT  SHE 
WAS  NOT  DECEIVED  IN  ANY  OF  HER  VISIONS 
AND   DIVINE  AND  SPIRITUAL   LOCUTIONS 

Once,  on  a  Feast  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  Mary,  some 
time   after   my  conversion,  I  besought   the  Blessed 

M 


1 62  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

Virgin  to  obtain  for  me  the  grace  from  her  Son,  that 
I  might  know  myself  not  to  be  deceived  by  the 
locutions  which  were  made  to  me ;  and  a  Divine 
locution  was  made  to  me,  promising  that  it  should  be 
done,  saying  as  follows:  \God  ?hqws  Himself  to  thee, 
is  spoken  to  by  thee,  gives  to  thee  a  feeling  of 
Himself;  do  thou  therefore  .ay9id_speaking,  seeing, 
and  hearing  everything  except  it  be  according  to 
Him.'  And  I  understood  this  which  was  said  to 
me,  with  much  discretion  and  great  promptitude. 
And  I  remained  in  great  joy  on  account  of  the 
aforesaid  locutions  which  were  made  to  me,  and  in 
great  hope  of  having  that  which  gave  me  grace, 
namely  of  having  His  licence  for  whatever  I  might 
do.  I  began,  therefore,  to  do  those  three  things 
which  were  told  me,  and  my  heart  was  raised  above 
all  earthly  things  and  placed  in  God.  And  whatever 
I  did,  whether  I  ate  or  whether  I  talked,  it  did  not 
prevent  my  heart  from  being  always  in  God.  I 
could  not  think  of,  nor  see  nor  feel  anything  but 
God.  And  if  I  stood  in  prayer,  and  wished  to  go 
and  eat,  I  asked  His  permission,  and  He  Himself 
gave  it  to  me,  saying  :  '  Go,  eat,  with  the  blessing  of 
the  Father  and  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost.' 
And  He  gave  me  permission  sometimes  speedily  and 
sometimes  tardily.     And  this  experience  I  had  for 


DIVINE  ASSURANCE  163 

three  days  and  three  nights.  Finally,  in  spirit,  I  saw 
God  at  a  certain  Mass,  in  the  elevation  of  the  Body 
of  Christ.  After  which  vision  there  remained  in  me 
an  indescribable  sweetness  and  a  great  joy,  which  I 
do  not  think  has  ever  quitted  me.  And  in  the  afore- 
said vision  I  received  the  assurance  for  which  I  had 
prayed,  and  no  further  doubt  was  left  me.  And  I 
was  completely  satisfied  that  I  was  not  deceived  in 
the  aforesaid  locutions. 

CHAPTER   X 

CONSOLATION  AND  VISION  IN  WHICH  SHE  WAS 
ASSURED  THAT  SHE  WAS  NOT  DECEIVED  IN 
HER   LOCUTIONS 

Whilst  I  was  in  prayer  another  time,  suddenly 
some  most  peaceful  words  were  said  to  me ;  and  He 
said  thus  :  '  My  daughter,  sweet  to  me,  much  more  so 
than  I  to  thee,  my  temple,  my  delight,  the  heart  of 
God  Almighty  is  over  thy  heart'  And  with  these 
words  there  came  into  my  heart  a  most  delightful 
feeling  such  as  I  had  never  before  experienced.  I 
felt  it  in  all  my  members,  and  in  this  feeling  I  lay 
down.  And  He  said  within  me  :  '  God  Almighty 
reposes  His  love  in  thee,  more  than  in  any  other 
woman    in   this  city.     He  Himself  delights  in  thee 

M2 


1 64  CATHOLIC  MYSTICISM 

and  in  thy  companion.  And  be  zealous  to  make  thy 
life  a  light  to  all  who  see  it,  and  truly  the  judgment 
on  those  who  see  it  not  will  be  hard  and  severe.' 
And  my  soul  understood  from  this  that  the  judgment 
of  literate  persons  will  be  more  cruel  than  that  of  the 
laity,  because  they  knew  these  divine  things,  through 
the  Scripture,  and  despised  them. 

And  again  He  added :  *  The  love  which  God 
reposes  in  you  is  so  great  that  He  is  continually  with 
you,  but  not  with  this  feeling,  and  His  eyes  are  now 
in  you.'  And  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  saw  the  Divine 
eyes  with  my  mental  vision.  And  they  gave  me 
more  delight  than  I  can  express.  But  it  is  a  grief 
to  me  that  I  relate  these  things  in  a  way  which 
is  laughable.  Yet,  notwithstanding  the  great  joy 
which  I  experienced,  my  sins  were  recalled  to  my 
memory,  and  I  felt  that  there  was  no  good  in  me,  and 
that  I  did  nothing  which  should  please  God.  And  I 
began  to  doubt  about  those  things  which  were  said 
to  me,  and  which  were  so  great,  and  I  said  :  *  If  Thou 
Who  speakest  with  me  wert  the  Son  of  God  Almighty, 
would  not  my  soul  receive  greater  joy  than  she  does? 
For  that  joy  of  feeling  Thee  within  me  I  could  never 
endure,  because  I  am  so  unworthy  of  it.'  And  He 
replied  to  me :  '  It  is  not  My  will  that  thou  shouldst 
experience  greater  joy  now,  but  there  is  more  prepared 


DIVINE  ASSURANCE  1 65 

for  thee,  and  know,  that  the  whole  world  is  full  of 
Me.'  And  I  saw  then  that  every  creature  was  full  of 
Him.  And  He  said  to  me  :  *  I  can  do  all  things, 
and  I  can  make  thee  see  Me,  as  I  was  with  the 
Apostles,  and  thou  shalt  not  feel  Me.'  But  these 
words  He  said  not  corporally,  but  my  soul  understood 
them  and  much  more,  and  I  felt  that  they  were  true. 
But,  to  prove  them,  my  soul  cried  out :  '  Since  it  is 
thus  that  Thou  art  Almighty  God,  and  that  these 
great  things  that  Thou  sayest  are  true,  give  me  a 
sign  that  I  may  be  sure,  and  draw  me  out  of  doubt' 
And  I  prayed  that  He  would  give  me  a  bodily  sign 
of  some  kind  or  another,  to  place  in  my  hand  a 
candle,  or  a  precious  stone,  or  some  other  thing  that 
I  might  see  clearly,  and  I  promised  that  I  would  not 
show  that  sign  unless  He  wished  me  to  do  so.  And 
He  Himself  replied  :  *  Such  a  sign  as  thou  askest 
would  be  a  joy  to  thee  when  thou  shouldst  see  or 
touch  it,  but  it  would  not  draw  thee  out  of  doubt,  for 
the  sign  itself  might  deceive  thee.  But  I  will  give 
thee  a  better  sign  than  that  which  thou  askest,  which 
shall  be  continually  in  thy  soul,  and  which  thou  shalt 
always  feel.  (And  this  shall  be  the  sign  :  Thou  shalt 
^Iways  be  fervent  in  love,  and  in  the  love^of^od, 
^nd  illuminated  by  the  knowledge  of  God  within 
theeVy-And  this  sign  shall  be  to  thee  most  certain. 


l66  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

for  only  I  can  make  it.  And  this  is  the  sign  which 
'  I  told  thee  is  better  than  the  one  which  thou  askedst 
;  of  Me.     And  I  will  send  thee  a  love  of  Me  which 

will  inebriate  thy  soul,  and  will  keep  thee  perpetually 

onJre^r_Me,  and  cause  thee  to  endure^tribulation 
I  <^5^^J^— MjlJoX^  ^^^   to   b^  -grateful   when   thoju   art 

levilly  spoken  of  or  ill-treated,  and  to  declare, thyself 


unworthy  of  such  graces.  For  SQ-great  wasJLhis  love 
of  Mine  fjor-lhee  that  for  you  ^  endured  all-ihings 
with  humility.  Know  therefore  that  I  am  in  thee,  if, 
when  any  speak  evil  of  thee  or  ill-treat  thee,  thou 
dost  not  only/patientLy_£ndur^'  hut--desii=est  tlie_lilce_ 
again,  and^rt^rateiul^for  it.  This  latter  is  a  certain 
sign  of  the  grace  of  GocL^  And  behold  I  anoint  thee 
with  an  ointment,  Syrocoso,  with  which  a  holy  man 
called  Saint  Cyricus  was  anointed,  and  many  other 
saints  as  well.' 

And  immediately  I  felt  that  ointment  so  sweetly 
that  I  longed  to  die,  and  I  desired  moreover  to  die 
with  great  torments,  but  I  deemed  myself  unworthy 
to  endure  torments  such  as  the  saints  had  suffered 
for  Christ,  but  I  desired  much  more  terrible  torments. 
And  I  wanted  the  whole  world  to  cry  shame  upon  me, 
and  death  to  overthrow  me  with  every  torment. 
And  it  was  a  delight  to  me  to  pray  for  those  persons 
who   had  injured  me,  and  I   marvelled  no  more  at 


DIVINE   ASSURANCE  1 6/ 

those  saints  who  prayed  to  God  for  their  murderers 
and  persecutors,  for,  not  only  should  they  have 
prayed  for  them,  but  they  should  have  tried  to  obtain 
special  grace  for  them.  Therefore  was  I  not  only 
most  ready  to  pray  to  God  for  those  who  injured  me, 
but  to  love  them  with  great  love  and  compassion,  i 
felt,  with  that  anointing,  such  sweetness  within  and 
without  as  I  had  never  before  experienced,  and 
which  I  cannot  express  by  any  words  great  or  small. 
And  this  consolation  was  different  to  previous  ones 
which  I  had  experienced,  in  that,  formerly,  my  only 
desire  was  to  die  immediately,  but  now  I  desired  a 
burdensome  death,  prolonged  by  every  torment,  and 
that  every  one  of  my  limbs  might  be  tortured.  And 
these  things  seemed  to  me  to  be  but  small.  And  my 
soul  comprehended  how  small  is  every  torment 
beside  those  goods  which  are  promised  in  Eternal 
Life,  and  she  comprehended  most  certainly.  And 
were  all  the  wise  men  in  the  world  to  tell  me 
otherwise  I  should  not  believe  them.  And  I  do 
not  believe  I  should  be  lying  were  I  to  say  that 
all  they  who  follow  the  aforesaid  way  are  saved.  And 
this  sign  sank  down  so  firmly  into  my  soul  with  so 
clear  a  light  and  illumination,  that  I  think  I  would 
undergo  martyrdom  rather  than  have  it  otherwise. 
And  I  feel  clearly  that  in  this  sign  is  the  way  of  salva- 


1 68  CATHOLIC  MYSTICLSM 

tion  :  namely,^jQ3;e  and-desij:£_suffeiung  forjtlieiove 

And  I  heard  God  speaking  to  me,  saying  :  'Cause 
to  be  written  at  the  end  of  these  things :  Give 
thanks  to  God.  And  whosoever  will  retain  grace,  let 
him  not  lift  his  eyes  from  the  Cross,  be  he  in  joy  or 
in  sadness,  for  it  is  I  Who  permit  all  things  to  him.' 
And  my  soul  understood  all  that  was  said  about  the 
aforesaid  sign  more  fully  than  I  can  say,  and  with 
greater  delight  and  love  than  can  be  told  ;  and  may 
it  be  the  will  of  God  that  I  sin  not  in  relating,  as  I 
do,  thus  badly,  and  with  so  many  defects. 


OF  THE  DEATH   OF  BLESSED  ANGELA 

Now  when  Angela  was  lying  prostrate,  in  her  last 
sickness,  her  mind  being  more  fully  absorbed  in  the 
abyss  of  the  Divine  Infinity,  she  used  to  speak  to  us 
at  long  intervals,  and  with  many  interruptions.  Let 
us  who  were  present  briefly  recall  her  words  as  far  as 
we  were  able  to  understand  them.  Once  she  said  (it 
was  about  the  Feast  of  the  Lord's  Nativity,  at  which 
time  she  herself  passed  to  Christ) :  *  The  Word  was 
made  flesh,'  and  after  a  long  delay  she  continued, 
as  if  returning  from  elsewhere  :  *  Every  creature  fails, 
and  the  intellect  of  all  the  angels  is  not  sufificient.'J 


DEATH   OF   BLESSED  ANGELA  169 

On  being  asked  by  us  how  every  creature  failed,  and 
for  what  the  angelic  intellect  was  insufficient,  she 
replied  /*  To  comprehend.'jAfterwards  she  said  :^  Oh, 
behold  in  truth  my  God,  Who  has  kept  His  promise 
to  me,  for  Christ  His  Son  has  presented  me  to  His 
Father. 'y  She  had  said  before  :  *  You  know  how 
Christ  was  in  the  ship  while  the  tempest  was  so 
great  ?  In  truth  it  is  so  sometimes  in  the  soul,  when 
He  permits  temptations  to  come.  Himself  seeming  to 
sleep  the  while/  And  again  she  said  '.(^n  truth, 
until  God  permits  the  entire  personality  to  be  in- 
clined to,  and  filled  with  His  will,  H^does  not  allow 
temptations^nd^  storms  to  end  ;  and  this  He  does 
specially  for  His  own  legitimate  children.' )  On 
another  occasion,  also,  she  said  to  us  :  'I  would 
gladly  speak  to  you,  my  children,  if  I  knew  that  I 
should  not  be  deceived,'  referring  here  to  the  promise 
of  her  death,  for,  through  her  desire  to  die,  she  feared 
greatly  that  she  might  recover  from  that  illness.  And 
she  continued  i^J  What  I  say  to  you  I  only  say  in 
order  that  you  may  follow  that  which  I  have  not 
followed^  adding :  *  My  soul  is  washed  and  cleansed 
in  the  Blood  of  Christ,  which  is  as  fresh  and  warm  as 
if  it  had  just  issued  from  the  body  of  the  Crucified,) 
and  it  was  said  to  my  soul :  "This  is  what  has  cleansed 
thee,"  and  my  soul  replied  :  "  My  God,  shall  I  be 


I70  CATHOLIC  MYSTICISM 

deceived  in  my  hope  ?  "  and  the  answer  was,  "  No."  ' 
Afterwards  she  said:  *  Christ,  the  Son  of  God, 
has  just  presented  me  to  His  Father,  and  these 
words  were  said  to  me  :  "  O  spouse  and  fair  one, 
beloved  of  Me  in  truth,  I  will  not  that  thou  come  to 
Me  in  such  grief,  but  with  delight,  and  clothed  with 
a  royal  garment,  as  befits  the  nuptials  of  the  King 
with  His  long-loved  bride  ; "  and  He  showed  me  a 
garment,  as  a  bridegroom  might  his  dearly  loved 
betrothed,  which  was  not  purple  nor  scarlet,  nor  made 
of  samite,  but  a  certain  wonderful  light,  with  which 
the  soul  is  clothed.  And  then  He  showed  me  Him- 
self, the  Bridegroom,  the  Eternal  Word,  so  that  I  now 
understand  what  the  Word  is,  that  very  Word  Who 
became  Incarnate  for  me,  that  same  Word  Who  died 
for  me,  and  He  took  me  in  His  arms,  and  touched 
me,  and  said  to  me  :  ("  Come,  my  beloved,  my  bride, 
whom  I  love  with  true  love — come,  for  all  the  saints 
are  joyfully  waiting  for  thee."  )  And  He  said  to  me  : 
"  I  will  not  entrust  thee  to  the  charge  of  angels  nor 
any  saints  to  bring  thee,  but  I  will  come  in  My  own 
Person  for  thee  and  will  take  thee  to  Myself,  for  thou 
art  become  sweet  and  grateful  to  My  Majesty." ' 

Now,  when  she  was  approaching  her  end,  on  the 
eve  that  is  to  say  of  her  death,  she  frequently 
murmured  :  '  Father,  into  Thy  hands  I  commend  my 


DEATH  OF   BLESSED   ANGELA  171 

soul  and  my  spirit.'  And  once,  after  those  words,  she 
said  to  us  who  were  present :  '  It  has  been  told  me  in 
reply  to  what  I  just  said  :  "  It  is  impossible  that  thou 
have  not  in  death  that  which  has  been  impressed  on 
thy  heart  in  life."  '  Then  we  replied  :  '  Thou  wishest, 
then,  to  depart  and  abandon  us  ?  '  And  she  answered  : 
'  I  have  hitherto  hidden  from  you,  but  now  I  hide 
from  you  no  longer,  that  I  must  indeed  depart.'  The 
same  day  all  the  pains  with  which  she  had  been  so 
horribly  afflicted,  both  internally  and  externally 
through  all  her  limbs,  departed,  and  she  lay  in  such 
peace  of  body  and  blitheness  of  spirit  that  she 
appeared  to  be  already  tasting  the  joy  that  had  been 
promised  her.  We  therefore  questioned  her  if  that 
predicted  joy  were  already  hers,  and  she  replied  that 
it  had  already  commenced.  And,  lying  in  this  peace 
of  body  and  delight  of  mind,  until  after  compline  on 
Saturday,  in  the  midst  of  many  friars  who  celebrated 
the  mysteries  of  the  Office  at  the  last  hour  of  that  day, 
which  was  the  Octave  of  the  Innocents,  as  one  falling 
into  a  light  sleep,  she  rested  in  peace.  And  her  most 
holy  soul,  freed  from  the  flesh,  absorbed  into  the 
abyss  of  the  Divine  Infinity,  being  about  to  reign 
with  Christ,  received  from  that  same  Christ  her 
bridegroom,  the  stole  of  innocency  and  immortality, 
to  which  end    may    Christ    Himself  bring   us   also, 


172  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

through  the  virtue  of^His  Holy  CrqsSj,  and  through 
the  merit,  of  His  Virgin  Mother^  and  through  the 
ijitercession.  of  this  our  mostjioly  mother  Angela. 
Amen. 

The  venerable  bride  of  Christ,  Angela  of  Foligno, 
passed  from  the  tempest  of  this  world  to  the  joys  of 
Heaven,  at  the  time  long  before  predicted  to  her,  in 
the  year  of  our  Lord's  Incarnation  1309,  the  day 
before  the  Nones  of  January  in  the  time  of  our  Lord 
Pope  Clement  V. 


APPENDICES 


APPENDIX  A 

HARNACK  ON   THE   CONNEXION   OF    MYSTICISM 
AND   CATHOLICISM 

Professor  Harnack  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  *  a  Mystic 
that  does  not  become  a  CathoHc  is  a  dilettante.^  He  has 
the  following  remarkable  passage  on  the  essential  connexion 
of  Catholicism  and  Mysticism.     The  italics  are  Harnack's. 

'  Mysticism  is  Catholic  piety  in  general^  so  far  as  this  piety 
is  not  merely  ecclesiastical  obedience — that  is^  fides  implicita. 
Just  for  that  reason  Mysticism  is  not  one  form  among  others 
of  pre-Reformation  piety — perhaps  the  latent  Evangelical — 
but  is  the  Catholic  expression  of  individual  piety  in  general. 
The  Reformation  element  that  is  ascribed  to  it  lies  here 
simply  in  this,  that  Mysticism,  i.e.  Catholic  piety,  wh*en 
developed  in  a  particular  direction,  is  led  to  the  discern- 
ment of  the  inherent  responsibility  of  the  soul  of  which  no 
authority  can  again  deprive  it.  .  .  .  If  Mysticism  is  with- 
drawn from  the  Catholic  Church  and  set  down  as  "  Protes- 
tant," then  Catholicism  is  emptied  of  its  character,  and! 
evangelical  faith  becomes  deteriorated.     Is  there,  then,  to  be 


174  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

no  living  and  individual  Catholic  piety  ?  But  where  should 
we  have  to  seek  it,  if  not  in  Mysticism?  In  the  three 
centuries  before  the  Reformation,  where  can  we  find  even 
a  single  manifestation  of  truly  religious  life  that  had  not  its 
source  in  "  Mysticism  "  ?  Or  is  Mysticism  to  be  denied  to 
Catholicism  because  the  latter  requires,  above  everything 
else,  devotion  to  the  Church  and  the  Sacraments,  and 
because  the  history  of  Mysticism  is  the  history  of  continual 
conflicts  between  it  and  sacramental  and  authoritative 
ecclesiasticism  ?  But  when  did  it  become  possible 
to  regard  such  conflicts  as  showing  that  one  of  the 
two  factors  is  illegitimate?  Is  there  not  a  conflict  also 
between  the  unquestionably  Catholic  ideal  of  asceticism 
and  the  equally  unquestionable  Catholic  ideal  of  world 
supremacy  ?  Are  the  great  Mystics  not  the  great  Saints  of 
the  Church  ?  Or  shall  it  be  held,  against  all  that  appears, 
that  this  Church  cannot  produce  and  tolerate  independent 
piety  within  its  own  lities  ?  Now,  no  Evangelical  Christian 
certainly  would  ever  think  of  confounding  his  delight  in  the 
warm  spiritual  life  which  Catholic  Christianity  exhibits  in 
the  centuries  before  the  Reformation  with  full  approval  of 
it,  if — one  must  unfortunately  add  it — he  had  made  clear 

to  himself  what  Evangelical  faith  is The  fondness, 

it  is  true,  for  "  German  "  Mysticism  has  received  a  severe 
shock  from  records  that  have  shown  that  if  one  is 
enthusiastic  for  Master  Eckhart  &c.,  and  derives  edifica- 
tion from  him,  one  must  be  still  more  enthusiastic  about 
St.  Thomas,  or  about  the  Areopagite  and  Augustine.  But 
still  more  powerful  check  will  be  needed  if  a  view  of 
history  is  to  be  got  quit  of  which  seems  the  proper  one  to 


APPENDICES  175 

all  fragmentary  natures  that  deal  in  a  dilettante  way  with 
religion,  theology  and  philosophy  :  a  Mystic  that  does  not 
become  a  Catholic  is  a  dilettante.^  ^ 

I  append  also  a  quotation  from  an  exceedingly  signifi- 
cant foot-note  to  p.  108  of  the  same  volume.  Professor 
Harnack  is  replying  to  the  criticisms  of  two  Catholic  critics 
of  his  book.     The  italics  are  again  his  own. 

*  What  I  have  set  forth  in  these  pages  (pp.  97  ff.)  has  been 
keenly  assailed  by  Lasson  and  Raifaele  Mariano .  Plainly 
enough  they  put  before  me  the  alternative  of  irreligioiis 
criticism  or  blind  faith  {Kdhlerglauben\  when  on  their  side 
they  claim  for  the  Thomist  Mysticism  that  it  is  the  only 
form  of  religion  in  which  faith  and  thought,  history  and 
religious  independence,  are  reconciled.  It  must  be  the 
endeavour  of  each  of  us  to  find  something  in  his  own  way. 
What  we  have  ultimately  to  do  with  here  is  the  great  problem 
as  to  what  history  and  the  person  of  Christ  are  in  religion, 
and  then  there  is  the  other  problem  also  as  to  whether 
religion  is  contemplation  or  something  more  serious.  That 
the  end  to  which  our  striving  is  directed  is  the  same— the 
seeking,  finding,  and  keeping  hold  of  God  —may  be  con- 
fidently granted  on  both  sides.  But  my  opponents  have 
an  easier  position  than  I  have :  they  can  prove-  and  I 
recognise  this  proof— that  the  piety  that  culminates  in 
Mysticism  and  the  old  ecclesiastical  dogma  hang  together, 
and  they  can  at  the  same  time  let  the  question  rest  as  to  what 
reality  of  fact  answers  to  the  dogma.  That  is  to  say,  the 
dogma  renders  them  the  best  services  just  when  they 
are  at  liberty  to  contemplate  it  as  a  mobile  and  elastic 

'  Harnack,  Zrw/<?ry<?/"Z?^^;;/a,  English  Translation,  vi.  98,  99. 


iy6  CATHOLIC  MYSTICISM 

magnitude  which  hovers  between  the  poles  of  an  inferior 
actuality  and  that "  highest "  which  can  never  have  been 
actual  as  earthly ;  out  of  the  darkness  there  is  a  pressing 
forward  to  the  light ;  luminous  clouds  show  the  path  !  * 


APPENDIX   B 

LOUISE   LATEAU    OF   BOIS   D'HAINE 

*  On  August  13,  1869,  there  took  place  in  the  cottage  at  Bois 
d'Haine  a  most  surprising  event.     God  willed  that  there 
should  be  there,  on  that  day,  some  important  witnesses, 
men  of  religion  and  of  the  world  and  three  women,  all  tried 
witnesses,  as  well  as  the  mother  of  Louise   and  her  two 
sisters.     This  event  is,  in  itself,  quite  a  revelation  ;  the  re- 
lation of  it  will,  alone,  rejoice  Christian  souls  and  strengthen 
their  faith  in  the  real  presence  of  our  Saviour  Jesus  Christ 
in  the  consecrated  Host.     I  will  now  leave  the  story  to  be 
told  by  Dr.  Lefebvre,  who  has  recounted  it  in  his  essay  on 
Louise  Lateau.     The  eminent  professor  of  the  University  of 
Louvain  insists,  with  reason,  upon  this  prodigy,  as  measuring 
the  whole  distance  between  the  divine  ecstasy  and  the  mag- 
netic ecstasy. 

*  The  facts  alone  must  speak,'  he  says.  *  I  have  chosen 
the  most  extraordinary  one  of  Ihem  all,  and  the  one  which 
would  be  the  most  incredible  were  it  not  established  by 
absolutely  reliable  witnesses.  I  borrow  it  from  the  reports 
written  by  two  ocular  witnesses  of  it :  the  one  is  a  statesman 


APPENDICES  177 

who  is  reckoned  among  the  most  eminent  men  of  our 
country ;  the  other  is  Monseigneur  d'Herbomez,  bishop  of 
British  Columbia,  beyond  the  Rocky  Mountains.  This 
remarkable  prelate  has  passed  twenty  years  of  his  life  in 
evangelising  savages  among  the  most  severe  and  con- 
stantly recurring  privations  and  perils.  His  scientific  know- 
ledge is  equal  to  his  piety  and  apostolic  devotion.  As  I 
have  already  said,  Mgr.  d'Herbomez,  authorised  to  see 
Louise  Lateau,  was  received  in  the  little  house  at  Bois 
d'Haineon  Friday,  August  13,  1869.  He  was  accompanied 
by  M.  I'abb^  Mortier,  superior  of  the  College  of  Bavay.  In 
a  few  words,  first  of  all,  I  remember  that  they  found  the 
young  girl  occupied  in  working  her  sewing-machine.  Blood 
was  flowing  abundantly  from  her  feet,  her  hands,  her  side, 
and  from  alt  round  her  head.  The  Bishop  entered  into 
conversation  with  Louise ;  he  questioned  her  upon  her 
visions.  She  replied  with  her  customary  sobriety,  but  with 
full  intelligence.  Soon  the  machine  stopped  suddenly,  the 
two  hands  of  Louise  became  immovable  ;  she  was  ravished 
into  an  ecstasy. 

*  Mgr.  d'Herbomez  and  M.  I'abb^  Mortier,  during  the 
whole  of  that  day,  followed  the  scenes  of  this  ecstasy 
which  they  described  in  their  report,  and  which  the  reader 
already  knows.  They  tried  different  experiments  with  relics 
and  blessed  objects.  Towards  ten  o'clock  they  were  joined 
by  M.  le  Cur^,  the  parish  priest,  who  had  just  administered 
the  last  sacraments  to  a  woman  in  the  neighbourhood.  The 
reader  knows  that  country  priests  sometimes  carry  the 
eucharistic  species  and  the  holy  oils  in  two  silver  vessels, 
joined  together,  but  which  can  be  separated  at  will.     The 

N 


178  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

one  which  carries  the  Host  is  known  as  the  pyx.    This 
double  vessel  is  generally  carried  about  in  a  silk  case. 

'As  M.  le  Cure  had  communicated  the  sick  woman  with 
the  only  Host  which  the  pyx  contained,  he  thought— and 
Mgr.  d'Herbomez,  as  well  as  M.  I'abb^  Mortier,  thought  the 
same — that  the  sacred  vessels  contained  nothing  but  the 
holy  oils  ;  otherwise  they  could  not,  without  infringing  the 
laws  of  the  Church,  have  made  the  experiment  of  which  I 
am  about  to  speak. 

'  The  idea  struck  them  of  trying  what  effect  the  contact  of 
the  vessel  containing  the  holy  oils  would  have  upon  Louise. 
What  followed  was  so  extraordinary  that  they  considered 
it  necessary  to  call  a  fourth  witness.  It  was  then  that  the 
statesman,  to  whom  I  alluded  just  now,  M. ,  who  in- 
habits a  neighbouring  country  house,  was  begged  to  come 
to  the  httle  cottage  of  Bois  d'Haine. 

*The  events  which  I  am  about  to  relate  took  place 
before  him.     I  am  here  nothing  but  a  simple  historian,  and 

I  copy,  word  for  word,  the  report  of  M. ,  which  agrees, 

in  its  smallest  details,  with  that  of  Mgr.  d'Herbomez,  which 
I  have  equally  under  my  eyes. 

* "  M.  I'abbe  Mortier  [the  experiment  was  tried  alternately 
by  the  Bishop  of  Columbia  and  by  him]  wanted  to  place  the 
vessel  with  the  holy  oils  near  the  lips  of  Louise.  When  he 
was  about  two  yards  from  the  chair  upon  which  she  was 
sitting,  she  exhibited  an  extraordinary  trembling,  lively 
movements  and  a  transport  of  joy.  She  rose,  and  fell 
suddenly  upon  her  knees  in  adoration,  her  trembling  hands 
joined  and  held  out  towards  the  sacred  vessels ;  her  face 
was  truly  seraphic.     M.  I'abb^  Mortier  drew  back,  always 


APPENDICES  179 

holding  the  blessed  instrument  in  his  hands  ;  she  followed 
the  priest,  who  retired  slowly.  She  was  half-kneeling,  half- 
standing,  leaning  forward,  her  hands  joined  ;  she  looked 
as  if  she  were  drawn  by  a  magnet,  and  as  if  she  were 
gliding  rather  than  walking.  M.  I'abb^  Mortier  and  Mgr. 
d'Herbomez,  made  her  go  right  round  the  room  in  this 
way,  and,  each  time  that  they  stopped,  Louise  fell  upon  her 
knees  in  an  attitude  of  adoration.  When  they  had  come 
back  close  to  her  chair,  they  removed  the  sacred  vessels  and 
placed  them  at  some  distance  from  her ;  she  sat  down,  re- 
turned to  her  immobility,  and  the  ordinary  scenes  of  the 
ecstasy  went  on  again,  just  as  upon  other  Fridays. 

* "  Mgr.  d'Herbomez  thought  that  a  particle  of  the 
Eucharist  had  remained  in  the  pyx,  of  which  M.  le  Cur^ 
knew  nothing,  for  he  had  not  had  time  to  make  the 
customary  purifications.  To  make  sure  of  this,  he  detached 
the  sacred  vessels  one  from  the  other.  He  first  pre- 
sented the  vessel  for  holy  oils  to  Louise  ;  he  was  able  to 
do  this  without  any  effect  being  produced  upon  her,  but 
when  he  touched  her  lips  with  it,  she  smiled  gently,  as  she 
did  at  the  contact  of  blessed  objects.  But  when  the  pyx 
was  presented  to  her  from  a  distance  of  two  yards,  the  same 
scene  of  kneeling  adoration  and  of  ravishment  which  has 
just  been  described  was  renewed  in  every  detail." 

*  Coming  out  of  the  cottage,  after  five  hours,  Mgr. 
d'Herbomez,  accompanied  by  the  three  other  witnesses,  went 
to  the  parish  church,  and  there,  in  their  presence,  he  opened 
the  pyx.  They  ascertained  that  a  considerable  particle  of 
the  consecrated  species  was  in  the  sacred  vessel. 

*  Meditating  upon  this  remarkable  event,  an  objection 


l80  CATHOLIC  MYSTICISM 

presented  itself  obstinately  to  my  mind.  I  know  how  in- 
clined adepts  in  magnetism  are  to  believe  in  the  reality  of 
the  most  extraordinary  phenomena  of  lucidity.  They  will 
not  fail  to  say  that  Louise  is  a  dainvoyante  of  exceptional 
power ;  that  she  recognised  the  sacred  vessels  in  their  silk 
case  j  that  she  even  saw,  thanks  to  her  exceptional  lucidity, 
the  blessed  oil  in  its  silver  box,  and  the  fragment  of  the 
sacred  Host  in  its  pyx. 

*  In  spite  of  the  very  unscientific  character  of  this  doubt, 
I  was  determined  to  raise  it.  I  demanded,  therefore,  a 
counter-proof  j  this  was  given  under  the  following  conditions. 

'On  Friday,  November  19,  1869,  at  nine  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  the  parish  priest  of  Bois  d'Haine,  accompanied 
by  M.  le  chanoine  Hallez,  a  distinguished  professor  of  f' 
the  seminary  at  Tournai,  went  to  the  little  house  of  the  ly  «// 
widow  Lateau.  Louise  was  plunged  in  her  usual  ecstasy. 
The  parish  priest  had  brought,  in  the  silk  case,  which  we 
have  described  above,  a  silver  vessel,  exactly  like  the 
pyx.  This  vessel  contained  an  unconsecrated  host.  It  was 
therefore  the  same  instrument  which  Mgr.  d'Herbomez 
had  had  in  his  hands  during  the  experiment  which  I  have 
just  related. 

*  If  Louise  is  a  dairvoyante  she  will  recognise  the  instru- 
ment which  is  used  for  the  administration  of  the  sick,  the 
silk  case,  the  pyx,  and  the  host  which  it  encloses.  She  will 
not  fail  to  believe  in  the  presence  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament, 
and  the  spectators  will  see  renewed  the  scenes  of  adora- 
tion which  took  place  before  Mgr.  d'Herbomez  and  his 
companions.  The  parish  priest  presents,  therefore,  the 
instrument  to  Louise :  she  experiences  nothing,  no  trans- 


APPENDICES  j8i 

port,   no  act  of   adoration ;  she  remains  insensible  and 
immovable. 

'Thus,  the    event    of   August    13,   verified    by   Mgr. 
d'Herbomez  and  the  other  witnesses  who  verified  it  with, 
him,  is  not  a  phenomenon  of  somnambulistic  or  hypnotic 
clairvoyance,  nor  any  other  kind  of  nervous  phenomenonJ 
This  conclusion  is  completely  rigorous.  ' 

*  After  the  ecstasy  at  which  Mgr.  d'Herbomez  had 
been  present,  Louise  owned  to  the  parish  priest  that,  dur- 
ing her  ravishment,  she  had  had  two  kinds  of  illuminations  : 
at  first  a  strong  one,  such  as  she  had  been  accustomed  to 
every  Friday,  and  which  made  her  suffer  ;  then,  four  or  five 
times,  very  gentle  illuminations,  similar  to  those  which  she 
had  experienced  several  times  during  Holy  Communion. 
Some  weeks  afterwards  (October  3)  Father  Seraphin 
asked  her  if  she  had  ever  felt  a  desire  to  communicate 
while  she  was  in  ecstasy  ;  she  replied  that  she  had  only 
once  done  so,  upon  one  of  the  Fridays  that  had 
recently  passed.  The  Passionist  Father  was  inclined  to 
think  that  she  must  have  had  this  desire  on  the  preceding 
August  9.  He  did  not  push  his  inquiries  further,  in  order 
to  leave  Louise  in  complete  ignorance  of  the  marvellous 
event  which  had  taken  place  in  the  presence  of  Mgr.  the 
Bishop  of  Columbia.'  * 

♦  Les  Stigmatises :  Louise  Lateau,  par  le  Dr.  Imbert-Gourbeyre, 
pp.  158  flf.    (Paris  :  Victor  Palm^.) 


1 82  CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 

APPENDIX  C 
THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  MIRACULOUS 

The  miraculous  in  se  is  not  the  subject  of  any  special 
definition  of  the  Church.  From  this  it  results  that  no 
particular  theory  of  the  miraculous  is  involved  in  Catholic 
Faith.  But  the  definitions  of  Cathohc  dogma,  on  the  other 
hand,  are  undoubtedly  stated  in  terms  of  the  miraculous  : 
as,  e.g.,  the  partheno-genesis  of  Christ  and  His  resurrection. 
^  Modern  science  claims  to  have  reached  the  results  which 
it  h^s  attained  by  acting  on  the  assumption  of  the  perman- 
ence and  universality  of  one  and  the  same  force  throughout 
the  whole  region  of  phenomena  observable  by  man.  The 
universality  of  force  understood  in  this  sense  is  not,  then, 
an  observed  scientific  truth,  but  is  assumed  as  necessary  for 
me  observation  of  any  scientific  truth  whatever. 

It  is  not  that  to  admit  a  break  in  that  universality  would 
be  to  discredit  any  particular  science — as,  e.g.^  chemistry 
or  geology — but  that  to  do  so  would  be  to  declare  all  possi- 
bility of  scientific  knowledge  of  the  universe  fallacious  ;  for 
the  admission  of  such  a  break  would  destroy  the  funda- 
mental assumption  on  which  all  such  scientific  knowledge 
rests. 

The  practical  truth  of  this  assumption  is  guaranteed  a 
posteriori  by  the  results  which  it  enables  us  to  achieve. 
There  is  no  need  to  insist  on  these  results ;  all  educated 
people  are  more  or  less  acquainted  with  them,  and  it  is 
evident  that,  so  long  as  this  fundamental  assumption  works 


APPENDICES  183 

as  sucessfuUy  as  it  does,  it  would  be  a  retrograde  and  indeed 
a  suicidal  step  for  scientific  investigators  to  abandon  it. 

Taking  the  affirmations  of  the  Church  relative  to  the 
miraculous  element  in  dogma,  as  they  standi  they  un- 
doubtedly absolutely  contravene  this  assumption  of  science. 
The  theologian  and  the  biologist  thus  appear  to  find  them- 
selves in  an  impasse  which  both  cannot  leave  alive.  For 
the  Church  does  not  merely  assert  another  order  in  asserting 
the  miraculous  (were  this  so,  religious  and  scientific 
conclusions  could  not  clash,  as  they  would  be  reached  under 
different  criteria  and  through  different  media,  and  would  be 
concerned  with  a  different  subject  matter).  She  asserts  (in 
so  far  as  she  asserts  a  dogmatic  fact  involving  the  miraculous 
element)  an  intersection  of  the  two  orders  :  i.e,  the  very  thing 
the  impossibility  of  which  is  the  presupposition  of  science. 

Probably  to  most  minds  this  is  the  most  serious  difficulty 
in  the  way  of  Faith.  There  seem  to  be  only  two  solutions 
possible.  One  solution  might  be  to  say  that  when  the 
Church  describes  a  dogmatic  fact,  she  does  so  only  economi- 
cally. The  real  content  that  she  is  conveying  to  us  cannot 
perhaps  reach  us  except  under  symbolic  terms  which  have 
to  be  used  in  the  necessary  default  of  any  others. 

After  all,  language  comes  to  us  through  our  senses. 
Perhaps  the  analogy  of  metaphysics  may  hold  good  here. 
We  talk  of  the  Absolute  '  underlying '  or  *  unifying '  pheno- 
mena, although  these  terms  have  strictly  no  meaning  outside 
the  sphere  of  sense-perception.  Yet  the  use  of  such  terms 
is  absolutely  necessary  to  metaphysical  thought,  and  one  who 
should  refuse  to  think  in  such  symbols  would  soon  find 
himself  ceasing  to  think  at  all. 


1 84  CATHOLIC  MYSTICISM 

The  other  possible  solution  is  no  doubt  more  drastic. 
It  consists  in  the  assertion  that  the  presupposition  of  the 
impossibility  of  miracles  is  only  valid  as  a  regulative  principle 
and  that,  as  such,  it  is  strictly  relative  to  the  point  of  view 
implied  in  and  the  conclusions  aimed  at  by  physical  science. 
That  point  of  view  and  those  conclusions  belong  to  the 
sphere  of  the  orderly  arrangement  of  sense-perception — any 
moral  or  spiritual  insight  being  expressly  excluded— and 
to  no  other.  Were  sense-perception  the  only  valid  human 
experience,  the  necessary  presupposition  involved  in  its 
scientific  arrangement  would  of  course  be  a  universal  truth. 
I  have  attempted  to  show  that  this  is  not  the  case.  In  so 
far  as  it  is  not  the  case,  other  orders  of  knowledge — the 
metaphysical  or  the  aesthetic,  for  example — may  have  their 
own  quite  different  canons  of  truth.  Why  not  also  reli- 
gious knowledge  ?  Certainly  it  is  no  easier  to  *  reconcile ' 
Hegelianism  than  Catholicism  with  scientific  axioms  if  these 
latter  are  considered  as  anything  more  than  purely  practical 
and  relative  assumptions. 

If  this  be  admitted  (and  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  it  can  be 
contested),  it  follows  that  miracles  (supposing  miracles  to  be 
a  canon  of  religious  knowledge)  might  be  occurring  con- 
stantly, though  science  would  be  none  the  wiser.  I  have  no 
competence  to  pronounce  on  the  truth  of  either  of  these 
two  solutions,  but  it  would  seem  that  one  or  other  must  be 
adopted.  It  has,  I  know,  been  suggested  that  miraculous 
events  may  not  be  really  outside  law  as  conceived  by 
scientists,  but  only  outside  our  present  knowledge  of  the 
operations  of  law  ;  on  this  view  a  resurrection  from  the  dead, 
supposing  such  an  event  to  have  occurred,  is  a  natural 


APPENDICES  185 

occurrence,  and  it  is  merely  our  ignorance  of  the  conditions 
of  life  and  death  that  prevents  our  understanding  it  as  such 
and  presumably,  if  necessary,  repeating  it.  Not  a  few- 
popular  writers  on  religion  in  this  country  have  fallen  into 
the  fallacy  of  supposing  that  this  position  solves  the  question. 
It  solves  it  indeed  by  destroying  it  ;  one  factor  of  the 
problem  devours  the  other  !  For  in  this  case  the  miraculous 
becomes  nothing  but  a  mistaken  inference  from  an  imper- 
fect generalisation,  rectified  in  due  time,  as  others  have 
been,  through  the  advance  of  science. 

Such  a  solution  indeed  is  purely  verbal  and  superficial, 
and  can  only  be  acceptable  to  those  who  do  not  understand 
the  true  nature  of  the  problem. 

I  have  said  that  Hegelianism  contravenes  the  universal 
truth  of  the  scientific  axiom  as  much  as  Catholicism  : 
perhaps  the  reader  may  be  glad  to  see  what  Hegel  himself 
says  on  the  subject.  After  some  remarks  on  the  miracles 
of  our  Lord  in  the  course  of  which  he  notes  that  the  attes- 
tation to  His  Divinity  was  in  Himself  rather  than  in  His 
miracles,  which  conversely  derive  their  value  from  His 
Personality,  he  sums  up  the  question  as  follows  : 

'  It  has  further  to  be  observed  that  miracles  are,  speaking 
generally,  effects  produced  by  the  power  exercised  by  Spirit 
upon  the  natural  connexion  of  things — are  an  interference 
with  the  course  and  eternal  laws  of  Nature.  But  the  truth 
is  that  it  is  Spirit  which  is  this  miracle,  this  absolute  inter- 
ference. Life  is  already  an  interference  with  these  so-called 
eternal  laws  of  Nature  ;  it  destroys,  for  instance,  the  eternal 
laws  of  mechanism  and  chemistry.  The  power  of  Spirit,  and 
also  its  weakness,  have  still  more  effect  on  life.     Terror  can 


1 86 


CATHOLIC   MYSTICISM 


produce  death,  anxiety  illness,  and  so  in  all  ages  infinite  faith 
and  trust  have  enabled  the  lame  to  walk  and  the  deaf  to  hear 
&c.  Modern  unbelief  in  occurrences  of  this  sort  is  based  on  a 
superstitious  belief  in  the  so-called  force  of  Nature  and  its  in- 
dependence relatively  to  Spirit,^  ^ 

The  italics  are  my  own. 

It  would  certainly  seem  as  difficult  to  harmonise  the 
Hegelian  theory  of  Spirit  with  the  presuppositions  of  modern 
science  (if  these  are  to  be  considered  as  anything  more  than 
relative  working  hypotheses)  as  Catholicism. 

I  have  only  to  add  that  everything  said  here  is  submitted 
to  the  judgment  of  the  Theological  School. 


'  '^^^qX,  Philosophy  of  Religion. 
119,  English  Translation. 


The  Absolute  Religion,     Vol.  iii. 


Spottiswoode  dr'  Co.  Printers^  New-street  Square,  London 


BY    THE    AUTHOR    OF 

CATHOLIC    MYSTICISM. 

THE  DIALOGUE  OF  THE  SERAPHIC  VIRGIN, 
ST.   CATHERINE  OF  SIENA. 

Translated  from  the   Italian    ky  ALGAR  THOROLD. 
Demy  8vo.  i^s. 


OPINIONS    OF    THE    PRESS. 


*  A  translation  from  the  Italian  of  ' '  The  Dialogue  of  St.  Catherine  of 
Siena"  affords  Mr.  Algar  Thorold,  the  translator,  an  opportunity  for  an 
interesting  disquisition,  by  way  of  introduction,  on  the  study  of  mysticism, 
which  he  declares  to  be  "no  sickly  delusion  of  this  or  that  morbid  indi- 
vidual, but  as  real  a  part  of  the  experience  of  man  as  the  nervous  system." 
A  desire  for  ecstasy,  Mr.  Thorold  urges,  lies  at  the  root  of  our  nature, 
and  this  desire  can  only  be  realised  by  mysticism,  defined  as  "  the  habit 
of  the  love  of  God  "or  "  the  reduction  to  the  emotional  modality  of  the 
highest  concept  of  the  intellect."  Mysticism,  in  fact,  is  an  exact  science, 
and  a  system  of  life  is  only  religious  in  so  far  as  it  is  mystical.  Mr. 
Thorold's  arguments  may  not  carry  conviction,  but  they  are  skilfully  set 
forth,  and  his  little  contribution  to  the  literature  of  a  subject  that  has  a 
deep  and  enduring  interest  is  not  without  value.' — Times,  24  April,  1896. 

*  Mr.  Thorold  decidedly  deserves  the  thanks  of  students  of  mysticism 
for  his  fine  rendering  of  the  "Dialogue,"  and  for  his  scholarly  introduc- 
tion. The  "Dialogue"  is  a  treasure-house  of  devotional  inspiration  to 
those  who  can  read  aright  its  messages,  and  the  place  it  has  held  in  the 
Church  is  sufficient  guarantee  of  its  astounding  intellectual  merit  and  its 
salutary  efficacy.  This  is  not  the  place  to  touch  on  the  questions — deep 
and  interesting  questions  they  are — suggested  by  Mr.  Thorold's  introduc- 
tion. We  can  only  recommend  his  work  as  at  once  able  and  faithful,  and 
trust  that  it  will  have  the  success  it  deserves.  The  publishers  have  spared 
no  pains  to  produce  it  in  an  acceptable  form.' 

Freeman's  Journal,  i  May,  1896. 


OPINIONS   OF   THE  PRESS— zonxXxm^^. 


'  Those  who  study  mystical  Hterature  owe  a  debt  of  gratitude  to  Mr. 
•Algar  Thorold  for  rendering  into  English  one  of  the  great  classics  of 
mysticism.  .  .  .  ^Mr.  Thorold's  translation  reads  easily  and  well.  It  is 
probably  less  wildly  metaphorical  than  the  old  Tuscan  of  the  original ;  but 
it  is  sufficiently  full  of  figures  to  give  a  faithful  view  of  the  rapturous 
qua'ities  that  distinguish  the  "  Dialogue  "  among  books  of  its  kind.  Mr. 
Thorold  prefaces  his  translation  by  a  short  paper  on  the  study  of 
mysticism  -  a  paper  interesting  from  the  curious  way  in  which  it  traces 
mysticism  in  modern  literature  in  the  oddest  places,  in  the  writings  of 
Flaubert,  Zola,  and  Verlaine.' — Scotsman,  20  April,  1896.  1 

'He  (Mr.  Thorold)  is,  in  fact,  one — and  not  the  least  able -of  the 
many  modern  theologians  who  strain  every  nerve  in  the  effort  to  har- 
monise the  dogma  of  the  Christian  Church  with  the  recent  discoveries  of 
scientific  investigators.  In  imparting  this  elasticity  to  the  strait  gate  and 
the  narrow  way,  Mr.  Thorold  reaches  a  conception  of  Christian  truth 
that  owes  as  much  to  Plato  as  to  Judaism,  and  that  ascribes  the  heresies 
which  assailed  the  infant  Church  to  mystical  aspiration  rather  than  to 
intellectual  arrogance.  These  theories  enable  Mr.  Thorold  to  accept  the 
Hellenism  of  Clement  of  Alexandria  as  a  consecration  of  Platonic  pre- 
possessions to  the  service  of  Christ.' — Saturday  Review,  x-^^Iune,  1896. 

'  There  has  come  but  recently  befdre  the  reviewers  a  new  version  of  the 
writings  of  this  great  mystic  (St.  Catherine),  prefaced  by  an  introduction 
that  has  been  written  by  a  master-hand.  Although  occupying  but  a  feu- 
pages  of  a  rather  large  volume,  it  contains  therein  an  exposition  of  the 
subject  which  shows  that  before  the  writer's  mind  have  been  ranged  in  all 
their  aspects  the  many-sided  problems  of  human  life,  and  the  bearing  that 
this  subject  has  upon  them,  not  alone  upon  what  we  may  call  their  senti- 
mental or  spiritual  side,  but  even  upon  the  life  of  sense  and  of  practical 
realities.'— New  York  Catholic  World,  luly,  1896. 

'  Mr.  Thorold's  excellent  essay  on  Mysticism  shows  an  extensive 
acquaintance  with  leaders  of  modern  thought  outside  the  Catholic  Church, 
and  their  views  on  the  supernatural.  The  subject  is  beset  with  dangers, 
but  the  author  has  written  nothing  that  is  not  in  accordance  with  sound 
theology.' — Tablet,  2.7  lune,  1896. 

'  We  are  most  grateful  to  Mr.  Thorold  for  the  vivid  exactness  of  his 
rendering  and  the  clearness  of  his  style.  The  book  will  be  found  a  most 
useful  and  suggestive  one  for  spiritual  reading,  and  ought  to  have  a  place 
in  every  convent  and  Catholic  library,' — Month,  I  line,  1896. 


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